


Black and White with No Shades of Grey

by boredom



Series: BWNSG [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Background Thace/Ulaz, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Rating May Change, Shiro (Voltron) Has a Clone, Shiro (Voltron) Needs a Hug, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), broganes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-04-26 22:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 58,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boredom/pseuds/boredom
Summary: When Shiro is 14, he gets abducted by aliens. When Shiro is 19, he escapes with a young boy and they take to the stars. When Shiro is 25, he learns why the Galra wanted him in the first place.





	1. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Author's Note:**

> The clone in this story is not Kuro/Kuron/Whatever else the fandom is calling him. I thought about making him the clone, but how I felt about Kuron isn't in line with how I want this story to go.

Shiro knew there was probably a better way to handle the situation than the way he was currently handling it, but he was tired. He was tired of constantly being afraid, jumping at his own shadow, sneaking around the house, trying not to make a sound (even during the day). He was tired of the yelling and the arguing and how everything always seemed to be his fault. It all got to be too much, with teachers giving him the stink eye whenever he admitted to not loving his parents. 

“They’ve done so much for you,” they’d say. “You should be grateful.” They’d lecture. “Some kids have it much worse than you.”

It may be true that some kids had it worse than him, that didn’t mean what was going on in his house was right or okay. It had all climaxed when his father, enraged over something, threw a plate at his head. Luckily, it didn’t manage to hit him, but it had come pretty close and, for the first time, Shiro felt afraid that if he stayed in the house, he wouldn’t survive. So he ran. 

He grabbed his jacket and his backpack and sprinted out of the house and into the desert. He kept running, not looking back as his father screamed at him to come home. He continued running, off the road and further and further into the wasteland, the temperature dropping more and more until he felt nothing but cold against his skin. 

Finally, after what felt like hours of running, he stopped, collapsing on his knees and breathing hard, coughing up mucus and spitting it on the ground. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the stars and the Milky Way above. 

There were no sounds save for the wind and a few animals, coming out now that the desert sun was no longer beating down on the Earth. 

“Do you think they actually care about me?” He asked nothing in particular. “Or do you think they just care about their image?” 

Shiro reached a hand up, wishing that he could actually touch the stars, that he could get off this planet and be free. Except, he couldn’t get off this planet. He was just as grounded as a chicken, desperately flapping his wings to escape, but the useless appendages did nothing more than hold him down. He had bigger problems to worry about, like what he was going to do now. 

He liked to think that his escape from the house had snapped some sense into his family, maybe now they’d start treating him with respect and be the perfect parents they acted like when other people were around. He had no doubt that he’d go back home and his mother and father would cry and hug him and promise that they’d never do that again, and for awhile it would be good. Then things would start to devolve and then they’d return to their old ways. Shiro squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t spend another day wondering if his actions were going to be punished or trying to figure out what weird rules his mother had come up with that he didn’t know or trying to survive another set of punishments. He was so tired of fearing for his life, of trying to be the perfect son but never being good enough. 

He sat up and stared at the rocky cliffs in the distance, breaking up the night sky. He couldn’t very well stay out here. He was fourteen and couldn’t get a job, at least, not a legal job. And he didn’t really want to become a border runner for the cartel...or a prostitute. He shuddered at the thought and was grateful that there was one type of abuse both of his parents seemed to stay away from. Where those really his only options? Die in the desert, start committing crimes, or spend the rest of his time, until he was eighteen, dodging ceramic plates and fists, bowing his head and trying to keep their focus off of him? 

Shiro shook his head and sighed. He wasn’t in a bad enough situation to get CPS involved, and he didn’t think being put into the foster system was going to help anything anyway. 

He’d stay out, just for tonight, and then come home tomorrow after school. Hopefully, him being missing would help reset his parents back to their loving setting and he’d have a few good days, or even a few good weeks, depending on how guilty they felt. For now, though, Shiro should probably be trying to make it to the cave system he found a while back. It would keep him out of the elements and wind for the night. 

He stood up, dusted off his jeans and began walking, not feeling any better about his situation. He looked up at the stars again, trying to find some comfort, except they seemed washed out, almost like when he went to Dallas with his parents and looked up to see nothing but light pollution. 

He stopped and stared at the sky, which was lighting dramatically. 

“How long did I sit there?” Shiro muttered. He had gotten into the argument with his dad at around nine, and while he wasn’t the fastest runner in the world, it wouldn’t take him eight hours to get the five or so miles from his house, even with wearing his beat-up Converses that were not good for running. 

His eyes widened as he realized that the sky wasn’t just getting lighter, but it was almost as if spotlights were descending down and focusing on him. Except, these weren’t regular search and rescue lights. They were almost purple-red and looked more like lasers than lights. Shiro squinted and realized that they were coming from a ship, a big ship, a ship that he was certain didn’t belong to the Garrison. 

Feeling panic claw at him, he started to run again, this time towards the caves. He knew the cave system well enough by now that he might be able to hide in them and wait for these aliens to go away. 

“There’s no such thing as aliens,” Shiro hissed to himself as the lights changed to something much more tangible and continued to chase him through the desert. His father had told him that once when Shiro expressed interest in joining the Garrison so that he could be the first person to contact aliens ever. 

He heard the beam tear up the ground below and he did not want to know what would happen when he got caught up in it. He continued to push himself forward. He was so close to the cave system. Just a few more feet and he could disappear into one of the chambers. The beam got closer to him. He could feel the heat of the machine on his back, singing his hair. He dove forward, ready to roll down into the front chamber of the system, but instead of hitting the ground, his feet were yanked up into the sky, his head smacking against the ground as he somersaulted forward. 

“No!” He cried as he realized the ground was getting farther and farther away. He felt dizzy, it was getting harder to breathe, though he didn’t know if that was from panic or from lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. He couldn’t hold out anymore, his eyes rolled back in his head and he blacked out.

oOoOoOo

“And we’re sure he’s the one?” 

Shiro came to slowly, groaning at the feeling in his head. It was pounding, pulsing, and felt wet and sticky. 

“What happened?” His speech was slurred and his vision was blurry. 

“What does Haggar wish to do with him?” One of the voices asked.

Haggar? What was a Haggar? Shiro blinked a few more times, trying to figure out where he was. He remembered running through the desert and hitting his head. Was he at the hospital?

“Where am I? Who are you?” Shiro asked struggling to sit up. He couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sit up. He was strapped to the table. 

“I believe she wishes to see what weaknesses this creature has after we finish the first step in the procedure.” 

They were speaking like he wasn’t even here. Then Shiro remembered the light, the ship. He was abducted by aliens. He was actually abducted by aliens!

“Seems risky, I say we kill him. Especially if he is the black paladin.” 

Shiro’s blood ran cold. Kill? “No, don’t kill me! I’m unarmed, I’m not going to hurt you guys, no one on Earth is!” he said, thrashing against the restraints and realizing what was happening. He was abducted by aliens, they wanted him for something, and now they might kill him. 

“He’s surprisingly resilient to the sedatives,” one of the aliens said. 

Shiro thrashed some more, hoping to get at least a look at his captors. He now felt sorry for all the animals that had been used in testing, because at the moment, that’s what he was now, an animal that was going to be tested on, dissected and fundamentally changed until he eventually died in captivity. 

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and Shiro looked up, gasping when he saw one of the aliens. He had bright yellow eyes that seemed to glow, white marking on his face and some white hair on his head. The rest of him seemed to be blue or perhaps a bluish-purple color and he had rather long and pointed ears. 

“Let’s see if this keeps you asleep for longer,” he said, sticking a needle into Shiro’s neck. 

“No!” Shiro cried, trying to twist away from it. 

“If the creature wants to be awake for the extraction and experiments, I say we let him.” Another alien snorted.

The alien who had stuck Shiro with the sedatives narrowed his eyes. “If he keeps thrashing like this, it’ll be hard to do the procedure properly.”

Shiro felt himself slipping back into unconsciousness. He hoped this was all a bad dream, just a bad dream and he’d wake up and go to school tomorrow and ace his math test that he had been studying so hard for. He’d eat his normal breakfast and lunch and dinner. He’d do his homework. He’d sneak out at night to look at the stars and wonder if the Garrison had any scholarships he could apply for. He’d be back home. He’d be back to normal.


	2. Take to the Stars

It wasn’t a dream. It was never a dream. Each day Shiro woke up and spent the time in hell. He had wondered, for a bit, if he had actually died in the desert and was in Hell, but quickly scratched that thought off the list because he couldn’t think of anything he’d done in his childhood that would put him in hell. Plus, he continued to grow and get older. If he had died, wouldn’t he just stay the same? 

At least a portion of his hair was white now and he was covered in scars. Perhaps the worst thing that had happened was the fact that he lost his right arm. The fact that he lost his arm wasn’t the bad thing, the fact that he couldn’t remember what had happened or how he got the prosthetic was the bad part. There were gaps in his memory. He vaguely remembered fighting some creature in an arena and winning. He had gotten taller, and stronger, bulking up through methods he didn’t quite remember during periods that he couldn’t recall. He tried to mark on the wall the number of days that had gone by since his capture, but it was hard. The prison he was on was a ship in space, so there weren’t really sun rotations that he could count. Plus, with the gaps in his memory, he felt like there were a few days or even years missing. Eventually he just started counting the days by the guard rotations, and that was good enough for him. Five years. He estimated that he had spent five years in this place and there was no end in sight. He had tried. 

The best days were the days when he was left alone in his cell, no pain nor mind games by Haggar and her druids, nothing. The worst days were the days when he would be carted off to Haggar to be tested, experimented on. Why she did these tests, he didn’t know. No one would ever tell him anything. Not that Shiro expected them to, he was a prisoner after all, but something, some reason for his capture would have been nice. 

He wished death would come for him. He wished the pain would just stop. He wished he had listened to his teachers and parents when they told him it could always be worse. Because this was worse. This was way worse, but unlike his parents where, when he turned eighteen he could be free from them, he couldn’t be free from these people, he could never be free. He would most likely die in here, in a lot of pain, not even knowing what they wanted. 

Shiro jerked up as he heard comotion from down the halls. The guards were yelling and shooting at something. That was odd, most people in this prison weren’t very spirited. They were all broken from Haggar and her torture. 

“Must be a new shipment.” Shiro muttered to himself, hating how blase he got about the fact that there were actual sentient creatures that were being tortured and experimented on daily by the druids. Five years ago, he was horrified, now it was common. He hoped that these aliens weren’t as resilient as him, that they’d die quickly without much pain. 

“Well, dad, looks like aliens do exist and I am the first human to meet them,” he laughed, returning to the far corner of his cell and hugging his knees to his chest. The shouting continued, and it sounded like it was getting closer to him. Did someone actually manage to escape? How did that happen? 

“Find the half-breed! Don’t lose him or I’ll let you be Haggar’s new test subjects!” One of the Galra screamed. Shiro learned what the species was called by a helpful alien that use to live in the cell next to his. The alien, whose name was Jacuu, didn’t last very long and ended up in the Gladiator pits as bait for one of Haggar’s newest creations. Shiro had a feeling that he had ended up in the pits a few times and that his missing arm was a result of that. 

The Galra sentries shuffled by him and the Galra commander on duty, a very unlikeable one by the name of Gloz or something opened the door to Shiro’s cell. Shiro stared at the ground. Gloz sniffed around his cell for a bit, gave a kick to Shiro’s side, the side whose ribs were already bruised, and stepped out the door. 

Gloz continued to screech about a half-breed and not letting it escape, leading Shiro to wonder just how dangerous this thing was. 

The ceiling above him creaked and groaned and he looked up. He had never heard anything on the ship make that sound before. It continued to creak and groan and it almost sounded as though a rat was shuffling through it. He smirked. The Galra, being as large as they were, tended not to think the air vents could hold anything and therefore didn’t tend to check them. They were too high for Shiro to reach, even with his growth spurt, but if the half-breed had managed to slip their way into the vents, he hoped they’d be able to make it out. 

Except, the ceiling was groaning and creaking even more. Come to think of it, air vents were only supposed to hold air. Even if the alien wasn’t a Galra, it still had to weigh something. 

Shiro’s eyes widened in horror as he realized that the ceiling was cracking under the weight of the creature. He was at a loss of what to do. If he called out, he could alert the guards to the aliens presence. But if the alien fell from this height, they could die. Even if they didn’t die, it was possible that the comotion would still draw Galra to them and Shiro would probably be punished for aiding and abetting, even though he couldn’t control whose cell the thing fell into. 

He didn’t have long to think as the ceiling finally gave out and a sharp cry echoed through the room. He lunged forward, and managed to catch the alien in his arms, stopping them from breaking their skull against the ground. He almost gasped at what he saw. 

“You’re human!” He breathed, taking a look at the kid in his arms. He was just a kid, skinny and scrawny with messy black hair and bruises covering his face and neck, extending below the collar of his shirt. 

The kid started fighting back against Shiro, trying to break from his grip, except Shiro’s Galra prosthetic held strong.

“Stop, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m a prisoner too,” Shiro said, trying to sooth the child. He felt like he might cry, it had been so long since he had seen another human, though that did beg the question as to how it got on this ship. Were the Galra invading Earth, or was Shiro outliving his usefulness and they needed another batch?

The kid finally stopped struggling and looked at Shiro with shocking purple eyes. “You look like me,” he said, his voice conveying the same awe that Shiro felt upon laying eyes on another human. 

“I know. I’m a prisoner here, but I’m going to help you escape.” Shiro found himself saying, though he had not idea how he was going to pull that off. The furthest he had ever gotten was to the end of the hallway before he was caught. But the kid could fit in the vents. If Shiro could just get him back up there, he could probably make it to the ships. 

“Listen to me. They have these containers that they ship out to other bases around the universe. The ones that aren’t garbage are marked with a purple X while the ones that are garbage are marked with a purple O. Get in the ones marked with X, okay?” Shiro’s arm was stronger than his real one, he could probably throw the kid back into the vents. “I’m going to get you back up into the vents. Do you think you can grab onto the side and pull yourself up?” 

The kid nodded. “What about you?” 

Shiro smiled at him sadly. “I won’t be able to get up there. You have to go now while they’re distracted.”

“But--”

Good God this kid was stubborn. “Don’t argue with me. I want you to get out of here. It’s no good if both of us are stuck in this place. I’ve survived this long, I can keep going.” 

Shiro heard some shuffling outside of his cell and pulled the kid behind him, though it probably wouldn’t do much good. The Galra had their ways of getting you to do things. Still, Shiro could potentially fight them, creating enough of a distraction for the kid to get away. 

The door slid open to reveal one of the doctors that regularly tended to Shiro’s wounds after his sessions with Haggar, Ulaz or something was his name. 

His eyes fell on the two of them, Shiro pressing the kid against the wall, prosthetic out, ready to punch something and keep him safe. He was a bit taken aback when he realized Ulaz did not have any guards or sentries with him. 

“I’m helping you two escape, but we must go now, Gloz is in the infirmary and it’s only a matter of time before he realizes I sent him the wrong way,” Ulaz said. 

 

“Wait, what?” Shiro kept his real hand wrapped around the kid. “You’re helping us? Why?” 

Ulaz groaned. “Come with me, I’ll explain on the way.” 

“Why should I trust you?” Shiro snapped. There was no way this was real, this had to be a trap. 

“If you stay here, you will likely die and Keith will be taken to Haggar to undergo an excruciating process that’ll enhance his Galra genes.”

Shiro wanted to argue that the kid, Keith, was a human, but they were looking for a half-breed. He didn’t want to know how a Galra and a human could have a child. 

“If you come with me, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” Ulaz stared at them, the way his ears flicked told Shiro that he was getting impatient. Shiro knew that he was right. They didn’t have much of a choice. They had to go or else they’d both be tortured, and Keith looked like he had been through enough. 

Shiro grabbed Keith’s hand and tugged him forward. 

“Are you sure we can trust him?” Keith asked. 

Shiro shook his head. “We don’t have much of a choice.” 

“I have a small cargo ship you can take. Do you know how to fly?” 

“Yes,” Keith said.

Shiro and Ulaz both looked surprised but continued forward, crouching behind boxes and poles whenever sentries patrolled. Shiro started tapping his fingers, the pattern he had memorized so long ago embedded into his mind. Sure enough, Ulaz pulled them forward whenever there would be a rest in the guards. 

“Why are you helping us?” Shiro hissed, still unsure as to why Ulaz would sit by and let people get tortured year after year but this human-galra kid was enough to make him help. Shiro wasn’t necessarily complaining, but he did wish Ulaz had a change of heart a bit sooner. 

“We don’t have time for that. I’ll try and distract them long enough for you to get away. There should be about a five varga window that their scanners won’t be working and you can get away. Stay on the outer reaches of the Empire. Shiro, you cannot get caught by the Galra, no matter what. Voltron is counting on you,” Ulaz said, ushering them into a hangar and towards a small cargo ship. 

“What’s going to happen to you?” Shiro asked as Ulaz started punching in buttons that opened the ship’s door. 

“Hopefully they’ll just kill me outright. Though, more than likely I’ll be sent for reconditioning.”

Shiro sucked in a breath. Perhaps Ulaz wasn’t sitting by and watching this torture happen because he wanted to, but because Haggar had done something to his brain. Shiro couldn’t let that happen. 

“Come with us.” Shiro urged.

“Somebody has to be here to set off the pulse. Keith, can you fly blind?” 

Keith nodded, biting his lip and looking nervous. 

Ulaz shoved Shiro towards the ship. “Go now! Or this will all be for nothing.”

Shiro wanted to argue. He wanted to turn around and yell at Ulaz for sacrificing himself, but he was right. If Shiro didn’t leave with Keith now, they might not be able to make it, and at the moment, Keith needed to get to safety. Plus, Shiro didn’t want to be stuck in this place any more. 

He turned and grabbed Keith’s arm, pulling him into the ship. The kid quickly found his way to the cockpit and started ficking some switches, the small ship roaring to life, lighting up and blinking. 

“Gah, this stupid thing is a piece of junk!” Keith said, smacking the console with his hand until a worrying grinding noise stopped. “How old is this thing?”

“You can fly this, right?” Shiro asked. From the window he saw Ulaz running out of the hangar. He hoped the man would be alright, though given his experience with the Galra so far, he also hoped that Ulaz’s wish for death would be granted quickly. 

“I hope so. It’s a bit older than what I normally use but the principle's the same.” The ship jolted forward as Keith started to ease it out of the hangar.

“That doesn’t bode well,” Shiro said. 

“Why don’t you fly it if you’re just going to complain!” Keith snapped. There was a high pitched squealing sound that echoed throughout the chamber. Both Keith and Shiro covered their ears, though Keith seemed to be a bit more sensitive to the noise. He wondered if it had to do with the Galra blood in his veins. 

“They don’t have this type of ship back on Earth, and I’ve only ever flown in simulators.” Shiro snapped back. 

Keith didn’t seem to be paying attention and zoomed the ship out of the hangar and into the space. “That sound broke the scanners on their ship, so we should be clear now.”

Shiro couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by where they were at. He had never actually seen the actual space, never being near a window to look. But now, he was here, he was flying through an asteroid field with a half human, half galra kid who had just escaped prison with him. 

“How old are you?” Shiro asked, jerking forward in his seat as Keith flew a bit too close to one asteroid. 

“Twelve cycles,” he said. If he was using cycles, then he must have been off of Earth for awhile. Looks like Shiro wasn’t the first human to run into aliens.

“Where’d you learn to fly?” Shiro gripped the worn arm rest of his chair, trying not to panic as Keith continued to fly recklessly through the field. He didn’t know much about alien life, but he didn’t think that twelve-year-olds would be given flying lessons. 

“Um…” 

Shiro rolled his eyes. Great, just great, he was currently escaping from the Galra empire with a kid who was likely a fugitive. He could already feel the stress building in his body. 

Finally, they made it out of the asteroid field and into a pocket of dead space. Keith sat back, his fingers pulling at a thread on his shirt. Despite how he’d snapped at Shiro earlier and fought him in the cell, he seemed so young here, his toes barely scraping the floor. He also seemed unsure of himself. 

“Is there, um, is there anywhere you need to go?” Keith finally asked. 

Shiro thought about it. He could go back to Earth, it was the only place he’d ever known besides the Galra prison ship. But, it didn’t feel right going back to Earth. He didn’t love his parents after all they’d put him through, he didn’t have many friends, and after five years missing, was it even still the same planet? Besides, Ulaz had told them to stay on the fringes, or else Voltron (whatever the hell that was) would be doomed. He stared out at space, a place that he had longed to visit and explore. He looked at Keith, who still wasn’t meeting his gaze. He was just a kid, and Shiro really couldn’t, in good conscience, leave him alone when he could barely see out the window of a small cargo ship. 

He smiled and mussed Keith’s hair. The kid jumped at the contact and Shiro wondered what kind of life he had lived that made him so jumpy. 

“Do you know if there are any planets around here with trees? Preferably something without a lot of people. I haven’t seen a tree in awhile.” Shiro smiled at him, still working his fingers through his hair. This kid needed a brush. And a bath. And some new clothes. Shiro also needed all of those things, but right now, he just wanted to find a field of flowers and roll around in it. 

Keith nodded and began punching some buttons. 

“Also, you’re going to have to teach me how to fly this thing,” Shiro said. 

“Why?” Keith snorted. 

“Because it’s good to have two people know how to fly a ship. What if you get sick or injured and can’t fly?” he asked. 

Keith twisted his lips but didn’t argue back. For the first time in a long time, Shiro finally felt hope, and he finally felt free. So what if it was a year past his original prediction.


	3. Prepare for Trouble and Make it Double

*Six Years Later*

“Shiro, wake up.”

Shiro slowly came to, his face pressed against the pillow, a string of drool on the side of his mouth. He felt something poke his cheek. 

“Seriously, we’re almost to the space mall. Get up.” 

Shiro batted Keith’s hand away from his face and then pressed it to the boy’s face. “Does this thing have an off switch?” he muttered.

“Ha, ha, very funny. You make that joke almost every morning, now get up. I want to check out the knife store.” 

Knowing that Keith was about two seconds from pulling the blankets off of Shiro, he decided not to lay around and pushed himself up, wiping the drool on the back of his hand and blinking to look in the dim bedroom. 

“You’re not getting a knife,” he said, yawning and running a hand through his hair. 

“That’s what you think,” Keith muttered as he left the room. 

“I’m serious, Keith, you’re not buying another knife. We need to get you new socks!” Shiro called, knowing it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. He discovered very early on that while Keith didn’t have interest in a lot of things, he did seem to have an unhealthy fascination with weapons. The idea made Shiro more than a little nervous, since he had no experience with any of the weapons and didn’t want Keith to get something that neither of them knew how to use safely. 

Keith appeared a few minutes later with a protein bar and handed it to him.

“You’re the only person in the universe who goes to a space mall to buy socks. Seriously, you’re like an old man.” Keith scoffed, biting into his own protein bar. 

“Is this all we have?” Shiro asked, turning the bar over in his hands. 

Keith looked down at the floor, so that was a yes. While Shiro certainly wasn’t complaining about living on the ship with Keith, it wasn’t exactly an easy life. Being on the run from the Galra empire, which seemed to grow larger every day, didn’t offer many opportunities for Shiro to find steady work, and he didn’t want to expose Keith to any danger as well. So he tried to make a living as a scavenger, and Keith’s knowledge of the ships and technology came in handy as he could tell what was valuable and what wasn’t, but they had had a dry spell recently and Shiro was afraid that they were going to have to do something risky to survive. 

“We’ll dig through the fountain for some coins. That should be enough to get us some food.” Shiro said with more optimism than he felt. He had tried to be a calm and stabilizing force in Keith’s life, tried to provide some sort of optimism for a kid that sorely needed some, but in times like these, he really wished they had someone else out there, someone else looking out for them and helping them stay alive. He tried to tell himself that things would get better soon, but no matter what he spoke aloud, it didn’t change the fact that things were getting harder. More and more people were becoming desperate and they had had more than a few close calls, that was the reason for the dry spell. 

Keith crumpled up his wrapper, his brow furrowed and Shiro knew that he wasn’t going to like the words that were about to come out of his mouth. 

“Shiro, I was thinking that maybe I should just take you back to Earth. The Galra haven’t conquered it yet and I can tell that you’re not doing very well out here. I’m eighteen, I can take care of myself.” 

Shiro twisted his lips. The problem with Keith was that he seemed to believe that no one cared about him and that his life was virtually worthless. He pushed people away before they had a chance to push him away and this was not the first time he and Shiro were having this conversation. Shiro tried to be patient and understanding, the kid had been abandoned at a young age and forced to grow up very quickly to survive, but sometimes he just wanted to shake him and scream ‘if I didn’t care about you then I would have left a long time ago’. 

He reached out and ran his hands through Keith’s hair, causing the kid to purr softly. 

“I’m not leaving you out here alone. I want to keep you safe, Keith, I want to be here with you. Things are tough right now, but they’re going to get better. We’ve had dry spells before and after we refuel, we can go to a planet and gather some food. It’s not so bad, we’ll just have to plan a little better next time.” 

Keith still didn’t look at him. 

Shiro decided another tactic was in order. “Keith, I swear to God if you abandon me in the Space Mall I will find you and I will force you to eat all of your meals at Vrepit Sal’s for the next month.”

Keith smiled a bit at that. “Fine, deal. I won’t leave you in the space mall.” 

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes he felt like a child himself, pretending to be an adult and pretending like he could look after someone else. Granted, Keith wasn’t dead yet, or missing any of his limbs, so Shiro figured he wasn’t doing a terrible job, but it would be nice to have someone else around help him out. He was starting to feel the years of neglect and then torture creep up on him and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to hold out. 

“Let’s get to the space mall and I might let you buy a knife.” Shiro said. 

Keith laughed at that and went back to the front of the cockpit to fly them in. Shiro looked at the protein bar in his hand and then put in under his pillow. He’d save it for later, if they were running low on food again it’d be good as a backup. His stomach growled and he went to drink some water, hoping to quiet it at least a bit. Hopefully there would be enough change in the fountain to get them some more ration bars. 

oOoOoOo

“Dammit, Shiro, where the hell are you?” Keith hissed as he pushed his way through the crowd. Why was the Space Mall so crowded today? Last time he checked there wasn’t an upcoming holiday. “Seriously, I’m going to abandon you in the mall if I don’t find you in the next five vargas.”

His pockets were weighed down with change from the fountain, enough to get almost two weeks worth of ration bars if Shiro could talk the price down (Keith was never very good at negotiating), but what was worrying him more was Shiro getting stuck in this crowd. Keith hated crowds, they caused his heart to race and his senses to pick up. He felt like he would be attacked at any moment, but that he wouldn’t be able to fight back because the people on either side of him would limit his movement. It didn’t help that he tended to be shorter than a lot of the alien races in the universe, so he was often worried he’d be trampled to death. 

Shiro seemed to share his unease of crowds. He never stated outright that he hated them, but he tended to get tense whenever they were surrounded. Keith didn’t know if that was from his time on Earth or his time in the Galra prison, Shiro didn’t talk about those things with him. Still, he didn’t want to lose Shiro in the crowd and have the man fall into a full-blown panic attack. If anything was going to raise suspicion of the mall cop, Varkon, it was going to be a glowing Galra prosthetic attached to a very un-Galra species. 

Finally, Keith managed to push his way out of the crowd and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d go up to the upper levels and see if he couldn’t spot Shiro from there. Luckily, there weren’t many things that looked human and certain didn’t have a white tuft of hair in front and black hair on the rest of his head. He didn’t have to go very far, though, as he saw Shiro standing a few stores down, looking at a collection of rocks. 

“Shiro!” Keith called, jogging up to him. Shiro turned to him, looking a little surprised to see him. 

“Um, what do you want?” Shiro asked. 

Keith stared at him for a moment. He was acting kind of strange. He held up a bag of coins from the fountain. “For ration bars? If we go now we might be able to catch Leci for negotiations. You know he’s easier to negotiate with than Tial.” 

Shiro continued to stare at him, his brow furrowed. It was almost as if he didn’t recognize Keith. Shiro had had periods of not knowing his surroundings or what was going on, but he didn’t seem to be in a panic which made the whole thing every stranger.

Shiro’s gaze snapped away from him and he squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his brow and taking deep breaths. 

“Hey, man, are you okay?” Keith was starting to get worried. He had checked to make sure the protein bars were still good, but maybe Shiro was allergic to something in them. Or maybe he was getting sick. That was the last thing they needed since they barely had enough money for food, they certainly wouldn’t have enough money for medicine, though, Keith was willing to cut down on rations if it meant helping Shiro. He had done it before. 

“Sorry, kid. My head hurts.” Shiro straightened back up and smiled at him before clamping a hand on his shoulder and leading him out of the store. A smooth blue and green stone in the palm of his hand. 

“What’s that?” Keith asked. Shiro never bought anything he deemed unnecessary, and he didn’t know enough about alien technology to just buy something without consulting Keith or some sort of database first. 

“Shopkeeper couldn’t sell it so she gave it to me. Let’s go get those ration bars,” Shiro said as he steered them through the crowd. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Keith asked. Shiro was touching him with his right hand. Not that he never touched Keith with his right hand, but it was very rare and usually only when Shiro wanted to do something with both hands, like hug him. 

“Yeah, head feels a bit fuzzy but I’ll deal.”

“If you’re getting sick then we should pick up medicine first. I’m not sure how much it’ll cost.” Keith said. 

“I’m fine, kid. It’s just a headache, nothing more. I’ll feel better after we eat.” 

Now that Keith thought about it, Shiro and him had been steadily cutting back how much they were eating each day. From experience, Keith knew that hunger headaches were the worst and it was entirely possible that Shiro was starting the feel the effects. 

They stopped in front of the ration store and Keith breathed a sigh of relief to see that Leci was still there. “Make sure to get at least a few good flavors. I know the flavorless ones are cheaper, but maybe just two nice ones.” Keith said as he handed Shiro the money and pushed him inside. 

Shiro chuckled and walked up to the counter and started talking to Leci and Keith decided to peruse the shelves. There wasn’t really much to look at, and he’d rather be looking at the knife store a few stalls down, but he also didn’t want to leave Shiro alone for too long. What if he collapsed or something? 

“Ready to go?” 

Keith jumped and spun around to see Shiro holding a bag that seemed to contain a lot more than two weeks worth or rations.

“How’d you get so many?” 

Shiro shrugged. “Some of these flavors are close out deals. They’re not very popular or tasty, but I figured beggars can’t be choosers. Let’s get back to the ship.” He gestured for Keith to leave. 

Shiro was still acting strange. His smile seemed fake, which could be the result of him trying to hide the headache. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to pick up some pain medication?” he asked. 

“I’m fine. Let’s just go.” He snapped. 

Keith jumped at this. Shiro had rarely gotten mad at him. The only times he could think of Shiro yelling at him were when Keith did something incredibly stupid and got himself hurt and Shiro was worried. The headache must be worse than I thought. Keith thought to himself as he and Shiro made their way back to the ship. If it was still hurting him tomorrow, then he’d have to force them to stop at a planet and get looked at by a doctor. They didn’t really have the money, but Keith could come up with something. 

The little ship left the space mall and made its way to another pocket of dead space. Keith realized that they weren’t heading anywhere he recognized, though Shiro seemed to know where he was going. 

“Shiro, where are we going?” he asked, trying to get a reading on the map. If he was correct, they were heading to the Vlium System, a system that was under complete control of the Galra. Shiro was adamant about staying as far from the Galra as possible, taking Ulaz’s words to heart and almost never going in the interior. 

Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Keith looked at Shiro out of the corner of his eye. It looked like Shiro, almost exactly like Shiro. No, that was wrong. Now that he studied him, he realized that the scar across his nose wasn’t right, it seemed shorter, and his eyes were different. Shiro had admitted that he didn’t know why the Galra had captured him and was worried that it might one day cause him to hurt Keith, but for six cycles they had never had a problem other than night-terrors and flash backs, nothing that seemed to indicate Haggar and her druids had done anything to Shiro’s mind. 

But it occured to Keith that Shiro had not once said his name, not once ruffled his hair, and he forgot to pick up the socks that they were supposed to get. Something was off, but what? Keith couldn’t ask Shiro, what if Haggar had done something to him? Plus, Shiro still didn’t answer his question. If Shiro hid where they were going, he’d say it was a surprise, usually picking nice and calm planets that were full of fluffy animals for Keith to pet and play with (Keith loved to play with animals), but he wasn’t saying anything. He was still smiling, but it was different, it was unsettling. 

“I’m going to go eat one of the bars. The one I had this morning didn’t really fill one up. You should have one too.” Keith said. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but maybe being away from Shiro, or whoever this person was, would help him think a little clearer. Hopefully he’d come up with a plan before they reached the Vlium System and get turned over to the Galra. 

A cold, metal hand wrapped around his wrist and Keith looked down to see Shiro’s prosthetic gripping him, tightly, so tightly in fact that he could feel the bones strain under the pressure, threatening to break. 

“Sorry, kid, can’t have you messing with the plan.” Shiro said. 

Keith didn’t take long to react, driving his elbow into Shiro’s face, the way Shiro had taught him years ago. Shiro seemed to anticipate this and caught it, twirling Keith over him and slamming him into the other side of the cockpit. He stood up on shaky legs and barely ducked out of the way of another punch, the Galra hand smashing through the side, leaving an indent in the wall. 

Before Keith could figure out what to do, Shiro managed to grab him and twist him around, pinning his arm to his back and wrapping the other one around his neck. 

“Probably shouldn’t bruise you up too much, I need him to trust me,” Shiro said, his voice right next to his ear. 

Keith clawed weakly at the arm that was holding him in place and pressing against his trachea. He couldn’t seem to get any air in and his vision was starting to darken. 

“Who are you? What do you want?” he gasped, trying to kick the man in a last ditch effort to break free. 

“I’m Shiro.” 

Keith’s vision went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first look at Clone Shiro. What's his plan? How will not-cloned-Shiro react? Will our space dad end up adopting three more children? Find out! Same Voltron time, same Voltron place!


	4. Doppelgangers Make Life Difficult

Shiro looked around frantically for Keith. He had managed to lose the kid in the crowd, which had apparently gathered because of some festival that seemed a lot like New Years (though Shiro didn’t really understand how the whole time system worked since they weren’t even on a planet or near a star). He trusted that Keith wouldn’t just up and abandon him in the Space Mall, but he couldn’t find Keith anywhere and that was starting to freak him out. The last time he had lost track of Keith they ended up in the middle of a slave raid and it was thanks to Keith’s small size that he was able to hide underneath a crawl space of one of the houses while the Galra razed the place. Shiro had been panicked then. It didn’t seem like there was any danger going on in the mall right now, everyone actually seemed to be perfectly happy and civilized, but it was still possible that Keith managed to get in trouble and Shiro was starting to worry that he’d never be able to find him again. 

“Come on, Keith, where are you?” he hissed, shoving his way through the crowd. He was about two seconds from just giving up on being discreet and start shouting when he heard his name. 

“Shiro!” 

He whipped around, trying to see where it was coming from when he felt something grab his hand. He whirled around, Galra arm ready, but not lashing out quite yet (there were children in the area and one of them could have grabbed onto him accidently) when he came face to face with another human. 

His jaw dropped. In six years, he had never seen anything that remotely resembled a human. He supposed it wasn’t impossible, the universe was a big place, but this kid (because he did look like a kid) seemed to be entirely human, he didn’t even have funny ears. 

“Come on, Varkon’s chasing after Hunk, we got to go!” The kid grabbed Shiro’s hand and pulled him out of the crowd. 

“Wait, what is going on?” Shiro cried as they stumbled through the mall. He seemed harmless enough, but he also was pulling Shiro towards the docking port and he needed to find Keith before something bad happened.

“I’m not sure. I think Varkon thinks we’re space pirates or something.” The kid laughed and met up with another human that was shorter than him with round glasses and bright orange hair. 

“Awesome, you found Shiro, let’s go before Varkon catches us!” he (she?) said, grabbing onto Shiro’s other hand and pulling them.

“How do you know my name?” Shiro asked, though his words were drowned by a shrieking sound and another, third human sprinting towards them. 

“Guys, did you find Coran yet? We need to go!” he said, Varkon was close behind him on a little scooter, shouting something about space pirates and other things.

“We’ll meet him at the ship. Hopefully he got the crystals because Pidge and I sure didn’t find any.” the kid Shiro had first met said. What the hell kind of name was Pidge?

“This is a classic game console, Lance. Do you know how much fun it’ll be to play?” Pidge said, they skidded around the corner, Varkon still screeching after them, and slid right into a man with a large orange mustache and pointed ears. 

“Excellent, Paladins, everyone’s here. Time to go!” The man grabbed who Shiro assumed was Hunk and pulled them all forward. More to the point, did he say ‘Paladin’? Shiro had heard that before, back when he was prisoner of the Galra. He didn’t have time to dwell on that because these people knew his name and were taking him out of the Space Mall. 

“What is going on? Who--”

“Varkon’s the mall cop we told you about, Shiro. Remember, he doesn’t like us very much.” the kid name Lance laughed as they made their way down the hallway. 

Shiro tried to dig his heels in, but Lance had a strong grip on his arm and was now pulling him into a ship that was, admittedly, much nice than his own. The kids were all laughing and looking pleased with themselves, but Shiro was trying not to work his way into a panic attack. He was being kidnapped again, he was going to be experimented on by the Galra and after six years of being on the run from them, he doubted they were going to go easy on him. He tried to stay calm. He still didn’t know where Keith was and he had to find him. But, if the Galra thought that Shiro was alone, maybe that meant they didn’t have Keith and weren’t looking for him. But Keith probably wouldn’t let Shiro go without at least looking for him. Unless Keith thought that Shiro abandoned him like he always feared and didn’t look for him. At the moment, that was more preferable since it meant that Keith was likely to not try and take on the entire Galra empire with little more than a few knives and a ship that barely ran. 

“Shiro, man, are you okay?” one of the kids asked. 

Shiro’s panic bubbled over, unable to contain itself anymore. He was looking at three humans, more humans than he had seen in eleven years. Haggar was playing games with him. She had done something to his mind all those years ago and now he was being tortured again. 

He smashed himself to the back of the ship, Galra arm activated and in front of him. A look of horror passed over the kids’ faces and for a moment, Shiro felt sorry, he felt like he should have better control over himself, but Haggar was messing with his mind. She was creating these images. 

“Shiro?” the shortest one asked, his (her?) voice shaking. “What’s wrong?”

“Guys, give him room, he might be having another flashback,” the big one, Hunk said. 

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” Shiro asked, trying to keep his voice steady and himself under control. 

A look of hurt flashed over the faces of the kids. Why would Haggar conjure up this image? It had no meaning for Shiro? Maybe this wasn’t Haggar’s doing, maybe these were bounty hunters who had the ability to transform themselves into other species. Keith told him a few of those existed. 

“Shiro, it’s us. What’s wrong?” Lance said. 

“I’ll get Coran, maybe he knows something.” Hunk said, getting up to move. 

“No!” Shiro shouted. He couldn’t risk being drugged or something. His hand sparked at whirled, ready to slice through anything that tried to hurt him. “No one is going anywhere until you tell me who the hell you are and where the hell we’re going.” Shiro hissed. He prayed that Keith was alright, wandering around the space mall and that these guys hadn’t done anything to him. 

“It’s Pidge, Shiro. Why don’t you recognize us. You were on the Kerberos Mission with my brother Matt, remember?” Pidge said. 

“I don’t know a Matt and I’ve never been on any Kerberos Mission. Who are you? What do you want with me?” 

“Paladins, I have- oh,” the man with the orange mustache, who Shiro assumed was Coran, stepped into the back. “Shiro, are you alright?”

“Why do you guys keep saying my name like you know me?” Shiro shouted. At least they hadn’t tried to attack him yet. Actually, they seemed just as scared as he was, almost frozen in place, like they didn’t really know what to make of this situation either. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.

“We’re going to the Castle of Lions. When did he start acting this way?” Coran turned to address Hunk. 

Hunk scratched his chin. “Almost as soon as we got on the ship.” 

Coran twirled his mustache in his fingers. “Hm, Shiro, I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but we’ll figure it out. We mean you no harm.”

“If you mean me no harm, then take me back to the Space Mall and let me go,” Shiro growled. 

The kids looked shocked by this request. Coran seemed to think things over before nodding. “Alright, we’ll go back to the mall.” 

“What? Coran, why would you say that?” Lance shouted. 

“Something is clearly wrong here, so let’s go back to the mall to figure it out.” Coran went back into the cockpit and Shiro felt the ship turn around. 

The three kids looked back at him, still looking like someone stole their favorite toy. Shiro stayed pressed up against the wall, arm still out in front of him ready to strike. He didn’t know if Coran was telling the truth or not and he didn’t want to get caught up in a fight unprepared. 

The three kids finally sat back down, smashed as far away from him as possible. Shiro tried to look for inconsistencies in their bodies, something that would tell him he was looking at an alien species instead of humans, but he could find none. He just prayed that he and Keith would be able to escape these people and go back to living on the fringes of the galaxy.

oOoOoOo

Lance and the others didn’t talk the entire way back to the Space Mall. He had hoped that whatever panic induced reaction Shiro was in would wear off, but the man still seemed ready to fight them, though his Galra arm was powered down. 

He had never felt so confused in his life. Shiro could get dangerous if he was in the middle of a panic attack, and at first that seemed to be what was happening, but even after Hunk tried to calm him down he still seemed...dangerous. 

Lance glanced over at Pidge, who was staring at her hands. He had a feeling it had to do with her brother. Shiro didn’t seem to know any of them. This wasn’t just him not recognizing where he was, this was Shiro seeming to forget his entire time at the Garrison. He wanted to try and discuss it with the others, but he also didn’t want to set Shiro off. 

Finally, Coran pulled into the docks. The door opened. 

“Do not follow me.” Shiro growled before sprinting out the doors. 

“What should we do, guys? He still hasn’t calmed down.” Hunk said, looking out the door. 

“Whatever happened, had to have happened while we were in the mall,” Pidge said, finally shaking herself out of her stupor and standing up. “I say we go look at the security footage and see if something happened to Shiro, something to set him off.” 

“Good idea number four!” Coran said cheerfully, coming out and twirling his mustache. 

“How are we going to get access to the security footage, though? Varkon thinks we’re pirates.” Hunk said.

“Plus we don’t want to lose track of Shiro and have him do something dangerous to himself or others. Did you guys see him? He was like a caged animal!” Lance said. 

“If Lance and I cause a distraction, Varkon will probably chase after us, leaving the security room open for Pidge to look through the cameras. Coran can help keep an eye on Shiro and tell us if anything is off.” Hunk said. 

“Alright, good plan. I’ll go find Shiro, the rest of you good luck!” Coran gave a thumbs up and walked out of the ship. 

“Pidge, wait until Hunk and I have Varkon distracted.” 

“Will you guys be able to avoid him long enough?” 

“Pfft, that guy, we could run circles around him all day.” Lance said, trying to sound at least a little bit cheerful. It was hard when their leader looked about ready to murder all of them and didn’t seem to recognize them. 

“Good luck,” Pidge said, sliding through into an air vent. 

“Ready buddy?” Lance asked. 

“I just hope we can figure out what’s going on with Shiro.” Hunk sighed as they walked back through the doors. 

It didn’t take long for Varkon to spot them and start chasing them. Lance hoped Pidge and Coran would be able to find the cause of Shiro’s freak out and then everything would return to normal. 

oOoOoOo

Coran liked to think that he knew all of the Paladins pretty well at this point. True, they did keep some secrets from him, as to be expected, but he liked to think that he knew their strengths and weaknesses. But Shiro’s attack had left him more shaken than he had let on. 

He knew the man had some problems after his time in the Galra prison, who wouldn’t? But there was something odd about the attack earlier. Shiro didn’t seem to be having a panic attack or a flashback, he seemed to legitimately not know where he was or who the other paladins were. 

Furthermore, watching him now, the man was still clearly worried, but he didn’t seem nearly as dangerous. Instead, he seemed to be looking for something or someone. Coran stalked him through the mall and notice Shiro glancing every which way. At first he assumed the man was trying to get his bearings. But then he went into a store with ration bars and talked to one of the shopkeepers and it was clear that not only did the man know him, but he was looking for something as well. Why would Shiro know who the shopkeeper was but not Pidge, Lance or Hunk? 

Coran frowned as Shiro stopped a woman and child and started talking to them. The woman shook her head and continued walking. Shiro ran a hand through his hair and Coran recognized that he was trying not to panic. He turned on his heel and started heading back towards the ship docks, with Coran following close behind him. Just what was going on here?

oOoOoOo

Pidge watched Lance and Hunk take off away from Varkon and quickly made her way to the security room. She plopped down in her chair, wrinkling her nose at the Zarkon poster that hung in the room. She’d draw a mustache on it later, now she needed to figure out what was going on with Shiro and figure out a way to reverse the effects. When Shiro told her he didn’t know Matt, Pidge felt her entire body freeze. Matt was Shiro’s best friend, or at least, someone that Shiro seemed to put up with marginally more than other people. How could he forget him? 

“Figure out what’s going on with Shiro, then we can worry about that.” Pidge muttered to herself before flipping through the security feed. 

She rewound back to when they had first come to the mall and started following Shiro through the two hours they had been there. She flicked through all the photos and then her eyes widened when she realized that after about forty minutes, there seemed to be two Shiros. 

“That’s not possible.” She said, double-checking the time stamps. “This must not be right.” 

She clicked through a few more images, but the exact same thing seemed to happen, there appeared to be two Shiros in the Mall. 

Pidge sat back, trying to figure out what to do next. What did she even say? How was this even possible?

“I have to figure out where they both went.” She said. She picked a Shiro to follow and tracked him through the mall. Evidently, it was the Shiro they had picked up as Pidge saw Lance pull him out of a crowd and down the hall. 

“So where did the other one go?” She rewound to where the split seemed to occur and followed the other one, the one she suspected was their Shiro. He seemed to wander through the mall until a guy came up to him and started talking to him. A human boy. Pidge stared at the image. They had never seen any species that looked human. The Alteans seemed to be the most human and even they had pointed ears and face markings. This boy looked to be entirely human. Pidge followed the pair through the mall, wondering why their Shiro hadn’t said anything to him. They hadn’t run into each other like Lance and...Other Shiro did. They guy seemed to be in no hurry to leave and wasn’t dragging Shiro out of the mall. 

She followed them until they reached the ship dock and sat back in the chair. How was this possible? How were there two Shiros? And what were they going to do now. She pulled out a chord and downloaded the videos into her computer before messaging the others.

“Hey guys, you’re not going to believe this.”

oOoOoOo

Shiro couldn’t help but fall to his knees when he realized that his ship was no longer here. He didn’t have the wrong spot, he had written it down, he always wrote it down. Keith teased him endlessly about it, but just in case, he still checked every single level for the piece of junk he and Keith called home. But it wasn’t here. It wasn’t anywhere. He had hoped that when he couldn’t find Keith, it just meant that the kid had gotten bored and gone back to the ship to wait for them. He had been a bit worried when Tial said he hadn’t seen Keith, but hadn’t been full-on panicking. Now, though, he didn’t know. He liked to think that Keith wouldn’t abandon him, that he trusted Shiro. Had he been wrong? Had Keith left him here? Or had Keith realized he went missing and was now trying to find him. He didn’t know which one he wanted. He didn’t know what he was going to do now. The Space Mall didn’t exactly have an outdoor area Shiro could sleep in and he really didn’t want to work for Vrepit Sal’s. 

Had those people done something to Keith? Shiro would kill them if they had, he didn’t care if they looked like kids. There was no way that three human children would be flying around in space. 

“Um, Shiro?” 

He whipped around, Galra hand activated and saw the four people that had taken him. 

“What did you do?” he snarled. 

“So, we think we know what’s going on,” Hunk said. “Actually, scratch that, we don’t know what’s going on but we think we know what happened.” He smiled at him, though his eyes darted to Shiro’s arm, that was lit. It was starting to drain his quintessence. He normally didn’t have it lit in stasis for so long. 

“Well,” Pidge said, stepping forward carefully and bringing up a screen on her wrist. Shiro recognized still images of the mall with timestamps on them. “It appears that you’re a doppelganger.” She laughed nervously. 

“Man, we don’t want to hurt you. We didn’t mean to make a mistake, but you look exactly like our Shiro. How were we supposed to know there were two of you?” Lance said. 

“You can see here that this is when you guys entered the mall,” Pidge pointed to an image of Shiro and Keith walking through the door. “And a few minutes later, we enter the mall.” Sure enough a few images went by and then Shiro saw himself and the four other people walking through the door. 

Pidge cleared her throat and skipped forward in time a bit. “It looks like our Shiro left with whoever it was you were traveling with.” 

Shiro recognized Keith getting on the ship with him, though that wasn’t him. The man that looked like him but wasn’t him was carrying a bag of ration bars and Keith was looking back at him nervously, almost as if he sensed something was wrong.

Shiro sat down and leaned against the wall, trying to gather his thoughts. Keith was somewhere out in space with a stranger and he was stuck here with people he didn’t know. 

“Who are you guys? What do you want?” he asked again. He’d probably have no choice but to trust them if he wanted to get back to Keith, back to his life. 

“Um, it’s kind of a long story, but we’ll tell you when we get back to the castle.” Lance said.

“No, I want to hear it now. I’ve been captured by the Galra once, I’m not taking any chances. Tell me who you are and who the hell is with my brother.” 

The group exchanged glances nervously before Lance launched into the story. Shiro could hardly believe his ears. They told him that apparently his doppleganger lived a life on Earth that he could only dream about, being one of the best pilots in the Garrison and being loved by almost everyone. They told him about “his” disappearance after the Kerberos Mission and “his” subsequent return, with them finding the Blue Lion in a cave system. Shiro knew they weren’t lying about the cave system, that was the very system he had run to when he was being chased by the Galra, he recognized Lance’s description of the drawings, though he never saw any mechanical lion. They described their subsequence departure from Earth and how they were now fighting as a somewhat sentient robot named Voltron and that their Shiro was the black paladin. 

Shiro almost blanched at the title. He remembered hearing that word, a long time when he was first captured. He decided not to mention it. He first needed to figure out what the hell was going on. Was this the work of the Galra? Something told him yes, but he also didn’t want to risk losing the only people who could possibly get him out of here. 

He took a deep breath. “Do you think you’ll be able to get in contact with him? The other me? I’m sure you guys are nice, but I’m guessing we’d both rather have the right person with the right group.” 

The others nodded. 

“We will have to go to the Castle of Lions, though. I’m sure Allura is getting worried.” Coran stood up and led them back to the ship. 

Shiro did feel bad about threatening them earlier. He had no doubt scarred them if they thought he was their Shiro. No one seemed to want to look him in the eye. 

“I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier.” He said, trying to use the same tone of voice he used whenever he and Keith got into a disagreement. “I’ve already been taken by aliens once and spent a good five years being experimented on, I didn’t want that to happen again.” 

The kids all looked shocked at his apology. 

“Yeah, we should have figured it out sooner that something was up. I’m sorry we freaked you out.” Lance said. 

“It is nice, though, seeing another human face. Keith’s about the only human thing I’ve seen since I left Earth.” Shiro admitted. 

“Why did you never go back?” Pidge asked. 

Shiro shrugged. “There was nothing for me there. Your Shiro might have had a life, but when I was taken, I was taken away from nothing. Plus, I didn’t know how I was going to assimilate back on to Earth. When I left, there was no such thing as aliens, but here I am proof that aliens exist.” Shiro waved his prosthetic. “Plus I didn’t want to leave Keith all alone. I don’t know, I was nineteen when I finally escaped from the prison and most nineteen year-olds don’t have the best decision making process.” Shiro laughed. 

The others gave nervous smiles. 

“That still doesn’t explain why there are two of you, and there are two of you,” Pidge said, pushing her glasses up on her nose. 

“Well, when you guys get your Shiro back, we’ll figure it out.” Shiro said encouragingly. Now that he wasn’t freaking out, he realized that these really were just kids. They couldn’t be much older than Keith and he had a feeling that they felt just as out of their depth and lost as he had. 

He just hoped that Keith didn’t freak out and hurt the other Shiro in any way, though Shiro was starting to suspect that his capture had something to do with this doppelganger, and it had something to do with what the Galra wanted him for in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Pidge isn't "Number 4" in the series so don't @ me. Because Keith isn't there, she's no longer the shortest. Let's see what tricky plan Clone Shiro has in store.


	5. Escape Plans are Bound to Fail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter this time. Also, prosthetic is a stupid word and hard to spell.

Keith slowly came to awareness. He blinked a few times, trying to focus his vision on his surroundings. What had happened? He had a headache and his shoulders seemed stiff and sore for some reason. 

He groaned and tried to roll over onto his back, except he couldn’t, there was something holding his hands in place. He jerked up, trying to figure out where he was at and what had happened. He recognized his room, but some twisting and shifting showed him that his hands were cuffed to the bed. 

“What?” Keith was trying to keep himself calm, but the events that had led up to this had come rushing back to him. Shiro had attacked him, strangled him, and had apparently cuffed him to the bed. They were heading towards the Vlium system, if Keith remembered correctly. Was it possible that Haggar had managed to do something to him? Shiro was always worried about that, but what had happened to make him finally snap?

He took a few deep breaths, panicking wasn’t going to help the situation, he had to figure out what was going on. Should he call for Shiro, try to talk to him? No, he needed to get off of this ship; needed to get away from the Galra Empire, but he also needed to keep Shiro safe. He couldn’t just leave him. Maybe he could sneak up on him and knock him out. But how could Keith reverse what had happened? 

He took another deep breath. First, he had to get out of these cuffs, then he could figure out his plan. His arms were cramping and aching now and it was hard to concentrate, but he could do it. 

He shifted around some more, glad that Shiro had put him back in his room. He had several tools that could pick the lock. His foot hit one of the small boxes and he slowly inched it towards him. 

“Patience yields focus,” he muttered. Shiro had always said that whenever Keith wanted to rush into things. He couldn’t afford to rush into things now, not when Shiro was depending on him. 

It was agonizing, slowly sliding the box of tools towards him, but if he moved any faster, he might accidently knock them out of reach. Finally, he was able to get the tools on his chest and with his teeth, work open the latch. He shifted to stare at the cuffs and was relieved that they were a pair that Keith regularly practiced on. Granted, his hands had never been above his head, but he was confident he could do it. 

He slowly slid one of the tools out of the box and managed to twist his arms and head enough to pass the tool into his hands. He slid the next tool out and managed to maneuver it again into his hands. This time he twisted a bit to far, though, and the box slid off his chest, the bang reverberating through the room.

Keith held his breath, praying that Shiro wouldn’t come to check on him. After a few moments, he decided that it was safe enough and started working at the lock. It was much harder than before, with the range of motion of his hands being drastically reduced, but he could do it. He had to do it.

“Patience yields focus. Shiro is counting on you. If you fail, he’ll go back to the Empire.” Keith reminded himself, over and over again. 

Finally, the lock clicked open and his hands came down. They started tingling and felt heavy, probably from being held in one place for so long. 

Keith didn’t have time to wait for them to stop, though. They were still in the ship, which was good since it meant they hadn’t landed anywhere yet, though he wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious. Keith didn’t know the Vlium System well, but he was sure he could maneuver them out of here. He’d go, knock Shiro out, cuff him to the bed, and then drive them out of there. That was his plan. 

He took a deep breath and slid his mothers knife in his pocket, just in case. He wasn’t planning on hurting Shiro, but it was always good to have some sort of defense.

The door slid open and Keith slid out into the corridor. Shiro was probably still at the cockpit. Keith grabbed a metal pole and mentally begged for Shiro’s forgiveness. Once this was all over they’d laugh about it and maybe go spend a few days on that forest planet that Shiro seemed to like so much. 

Keith crept forward, trying not to panic and screw up. He never realized how lucky they were. Six cycles and only coincidental run-ins with the Galra. Now, though, now they were in actual danger and Keith understood Shiro’s extreme caution with everything. It was just supposed to be a quick trip to the space mall to get some supplies. They had been to the space mall hundreds of times and they had never had a problem. How could Keith be so stupid and reckless? Why didn’t he realize what was going on sooner? 

He saw Shiro in the pilot’s seat, talking to someone, maybe a Galra? He took another deep breath and mentally apologized again, before leaping out, pole ready to swing at Shiro’s head. Except, a large, furry hand grabbed him around the neck and yanked him back. 

Keith let out a cry of surprise and Shiro turned around. 

He was held off the ground and twisted to see a very large Galra staring back at him. He had one of his eyes replaced with a circular prosthetic and a very large prosthetic arm resting at his side. 

“I thought you secured him.” The Galra growled. Keith swung the pole at the Galra’s side, though truthfully he didn’t think it was going to do anything. Keith saw Shiro’s prosthetic fly out and grip the pole, twisting it out of his hands. 

“I did.” Shiro said. He sounded angry, but not the normal type of angry Keith was used to. Whenever Shiro was angry, he was usually worried or stressed. This anger was spiteful, hateful, it sounded like venom was dripping off his words. 

He wasn’t going to let these people get the best of him and swung out his leg to kick the Galra in the stomach. It worked and the Galra dropped Keith, doubling over. 

“Why you little…” The mechanical hand whirled to life and Keith realized a little too late that he probably should have just kept quiet and docile because that hand looked like it could easily crush him if he were hit with it. 

“General, I hope you’re not planning on killing him,” A third voice called out. 

Keith took this chance to try and scramble away but the Galra smashed a foot down on his chest, pinning him in place.

The Galra growled. “I have control over myself, commander. But prisoners should know their place.” 

Keith managed to twist his head to see another Galra soldier, who wasn’t as fuzzy as the one currently pinning him. He didn’t have any prosthetics, which was odd for high-ranking Galra soldiers. Haggar usually replaced bits and pieces of them to make them better fighters. 

“Commander Thace is right,” Shiro said. “We can’t afford to hurt him or else the original will be suspicious.”

The Galra eased his foot off Keith, not enough to let him escape, but enough so that he didn’t feel like he was being crushed, though he knew there was going to have bruises tomorrow. 

“Who are you? What have you done to Shiro?” Keith said. He really should have just kept quiet, but he wanted to know what was going on.

The Galra looked back down and grinned at him, showing of his incredibly sharp teeth and causing Keith’s stomach to drop out. “We haven’t done anything to him, yet.” 

“Yes you have!” He argued back. He had a feeling that had Shiro not been brainwashed into helping the Galra, he probably would have been hissing at Keith to keep quiet. 

The Galra just smiled at him before bending down and grabbing the collar of his shirt, lifting Keith back off the ground. He threw him to the galra named Commander Thace. 

“Make sure you actually secure him this time. And you,” the General turned to Shiro, “you’re lucky I still have need of you. Make no mistake YT37298 that the more mistakes you make, the less lenient Zarkon will be after this is all over.” 

Shiro glared at the General before nodding. “Understood, sir.”

Commander Thace kept a tight grip on Keith’s arm and dragged him to an empty room. Keith turned to punch him but Thace seemed to predict this and caught the arm, squeezing it slightly. 

“If you want to live, you’ll do everything I say,” he said. 

“Like hell I will,” Keith growled before trying to kick Thace. It didn’t really work, mostly because Thace had a hold of Keith’s arms and was able to easily throw him off balance. 

“Gah, you’re like a feral kit. You won’t win against YT37298 and Sendak, so it would be wise for you to do what you’re told.” 

Thace managed to open the door to Shiro’s room and pushed Keith inside. He fell to the floor but immediately hopped back up, ready to fight. Thace once again seemed ready for this and quickly grabbed Keith’s hand, twisting him around and pinning it to this back. 

“You need to be trained properly. I’m sure even a child would win against you.” Thace growled as he cuffed Keith to the bed. Keith felt his heart sink. He didn’t recognize the cuffs, but they seemed to operate as a sort of magnet and he didn’t know how he was going to turn it off and escape.

“What have you guys done with Shiro? Why is he acting like this?” Keith demanded, still trying to seem threatening, though at this point there wasn’t really much use since Thace had managed to pin him twice. 

Thace made his way back to the door. “You’ll know soon enough.” And with that he was gone. 

“Come back here!” Keith shouted. He hated these people for what they had done to Shiro. He hated that they wouldn’t even call Shiro by his name, it was like he was a robot, replaceable and inhuman. He didn’t want to find out what was going on later, he wanted to know now. The longer he was chained to this bed in this room, the less time he’d have to help Shiro and save him, and Keith couldn’t risk being too late. 

He tried to remind himself that patience yields focus, but his mind was racing and he couldn’t seem to calm it down.

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” he whispered. He had failed him.


	6. Trust is Hard to Earn When You Might be a Clone

Shiro could sense the tension in the room rise as they got closer to their destination. He couldn’t blame the kids, he was antsy as well. To find out that there were two Shiros in the universe, it was a lot to take in.

Shiro’s mind couldn’t help but race with possibilities and explanations. The first one that came to mind: He had a doppelganger, simple as that. With an entire universe there was bound to be someone who looked like him. Except, that wasn’t possible because the Shiro that Pidge had showed him had a prosthetic arm and a little tuft of white hair and the same name. Looking sort of like him was one thing, but this guy looked almost like he could be Shiro’s twin. 

Maybe someone back on Earth stole his identity? Shiro had disappeared, but that still didn’t explain how he managed to have the exact same identifying marks as Shiro. He hadn’t had the scar across his nose when he had left Earth so it wasn’t like the guy could copy it from pictures. 

Shiro’s gut told him that this had to do with Haggar and Zarkon. They had kidnapped him for a reason and this...clone, this person was likely that reason. But that didn’t help calm him, if anything it made him more nervous. If Zarkon had purposefully planted a clone on Earth, then that meant he had connections to the Galra empire, connections that would likely hurt Keith. 

He looked around at the kids who seemed so dejected by the whole thing. If this clone had been planted to take Shiro’s place, then it was a miracle that none of these children had been hurt in the process. If Zarkon hadn’t planted him to take out Voltron, then why was he there.

“Alright, we’re almost to the castle. This’ll be fun to explain to Allura,” Coran said, twisting his mustache and looking much too happy about the situation. 

“Um, yeah, I don’t think so.” Shiro said. He didn’t know much about this Allura person, but to find out that one of her friends was a clone who was currently in a ship that barely worked with a half-galra half-human hybrid that she had never met was probably going to be a lot to take in.

The ship docked and the kids all shuffled out. 

“I just don’t get why he seemed so calm about it,” Pidge muttered to herself. 

Shiro was about to ask her for clarification when a woman entered the room. She looked to be about Shiro’s age with dark skin and white hair. 

“Coran, what took you guys so long?” She asked. 

“Um, well, you see,” Coran stuttered, twisting his mustache and looking sheepish.

“Wait, did you not tell her anything?” Shiro asked. Now that he had had a chance to talk with the kids and Coran, he decided that they weren’t much of a threat. They seemed just as scared and uncomfortable with the whole thing as he was. That still didn’t mean that Shiro wouldn’t be on his guard to ensure that he wasn’t taken advantage of. 

“Tell me what?” Allura said, frowning and furrowing her brow. 

“It seems here that there are two Shiros!” Coran said with what sounded like forced cheer. “And it appears that we accidently took home the wrong one.” He laughed before trailing off. 

Shiro didn’t think it was necessary that he make it sound as though he were some sort of dog. 

Allura blinked at them a few times, her face transforming from one of frustration to one of confusion.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” 

“Well, princess,” Hunk stepped forward. “We were at the space mall when Varkon, the mall cop, started chasing after us so Lance went to go find Shiro and he found Shiro except it was this Shiro who is apparently different from our Shiro and then everyone kind of freaked out because we had basically kidnapped this Shiro and this Shiro thought that we were going to hurt him so he demanded we go back to the space mall and then Pidge found out, that our Shiro went off with this Shiro’s traveling companion and so we kind of had to come back here with this Shiro because the mall was closing and we need to try and get into contact with our Shiro so that he can get back on the ship.” He took a deep breath and Shiro wanted to ask if he was okay. 

“Exactly!” Coran said, smiling brightly. 

Allura blinked at them again. Now that they were in the “Castle” (it really was more like a large spaceship) Shiro felt...different. He hadn’t recognized it when he had first exited the small ship, but now that he was standing here, it was almost as if there was a tugging in the back of his mind, like someone was whispering to him. The thoughts of having someone whispering in his mind would normally cause him to freak out, especially now that he was 100% sure that Haggar had messed with him someone. But these whispers were comforting, warm, almost maternal in a way. He resisted the urge to close his eyes and lean into it. He could ask someone later what was going on, but now they had to deal with the fact that there were two Shiros and neither of them were with the right people. 

Allura seemed to snap out of her confusion and immediately her eyes darkened. Shiro recognized the look and barely managed to roll out of the way of a very well placed strike. She might look like a proper princess, but he had little doubt that this girl could be deadly. 

“Princess!” Everyone cried as Shiro continued to evade her blows. He almost wanted to start hitting back, but he also didn’t want to risk getting on these people’s bad sides. Sure, they looked like kids, but six years in space had proven that looks were deceiving and they outnumbered him and they were on familiar ground. 

“He’s probably a spy for Zarkon! Why haven’t you detained him yet!” Allura shouted. 

“I’m not a spy. I’ve been running from the Galra since I escaped from them.” Shiro knew that it was his word against her perceptions, but he could at least try to defend himself. 

“Then how do explain the fact that there are two of you?” Allura’s blows seemed to be slowing, and he was glad. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could jump around and not get hit. 

“I don’t know. All I know is that when I was fourteen I was abducted by aliens. They never told me anything else.” 

Allura finally stopped and studied him. “This doesn’t make any sense.” She shook her head and looked away. 

“You’re telling me. When I was first taken, I thought I was just a test subject so they could see what humans were like. I never thought they would make a clone out of me.” Shiro laughed bitterly. Why couldn’t the universe give him a break?

“How do you know that you’re not the clone?” Lance asked, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms. 

Shiro opened his mouth to answer, but then snapped it shut. That was a good question. If the Galra could clone him and do all sorts of magic and experiments on him, then why would they not be able to transplant false memories? What if the events that happened in the past eleven years hadn’t happened at all and they were just works of fiction?

“I mean, this Shiro said that he’s been running around for the last few years away from the Galra. If they really wanted him to be a clone, wouldn’t they have him come back to Earth or something? Join up with us sooner?” Hunk shrugged.

“So are you suggesting that our Shiro is the clone?” Pidge demanded. 

“I’m just saying, from a plan standpoint it doesn’t make any sense for Shiro to be a clone. But, I mean, maybe the Galra just enjoy making really complicated plans?” 

The tugging in the back of Shiro’s head changed to a soft purr, sort of like Keith when Shiro managed to scratch him in the right spot behind his ears. It focused him and calmed him, and more importantly reminded him that there was still a stranger flying his ship with his little brother. And Keith would not take kindly to a stranger.

“We don’t have to figure that out now. Even if your Shiro is the clone, or I’m the clone, we’re both against the Galra empire, right?” Shiro asked in a calming, yet authoritative voice.

The kids, Allura, and Coran all looked at him and nodded. Though he noticed Lance was more hesitant to nod than the others. 

“Right.” He continued. “What’s important now is getting in contact with Keith and your Shiro and getting them back here. We’ll be able to figure things out better once everyone’s in place. We can come up with a plan then.”

Everyone paused, thinking over Shiro’s words before nodding. 

“Do you know how to get in contact with your ship?” Coran asked. 

“Yeah, the ship’s old though, it doesn’t have a very long range. Hopefully you’re Shiro will be able to convince Keith that he’s not with the Galra empire and they can make their way to the castle.” 

Allura still seemed to regard him with suspicion, but he tried not to take offence to that. Her entire world had been turned upside down and it was a very good question as to what the Galra were planning. 

“I would feel more comfortable if you were detained,” she said. 

Shiro felt his stomach drop. He was sure the color had drained out of his face the moment she suggested it. He didn’t want to sit in a prison again. Even if he was sure these people wouldn’t experiment on him, he didn’t know if he would be able to last with his sanity intact. 

Coran seemed to notice his demeanor and cleared his throat. “I don’t think there’s any need for that. He can stay with us and I have a device that will be able to partially deactivate the arm.” 

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief. Now that, he could agree with. True, it would be harder for him to fight should it come down to it, but at least he wouldn’t be caged like an animal. 

“I’ll probably need a sling then to support it. It’s pretty heavy and I’m sure once it’s no longer compensating its own weight, it’ll be very painful and possibly damaging.”   
Coran clapped him on the back. “Then it’s all settled. Let’s get a signal to your ship and hopefully when they’re in range, they’ll message us and we’ll be able to sort this whole thing out.” 

Shiro didn’t think it was going to be that easy, and he didn’t think that things were going to work out. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that this was not just an accident, and he was afraid that someone was going to get very hurt.


	7. Shiro Didn't Plan for Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back...Now that I'm all graduated, I have more time to write and not stress about finals. Yay! It should be more consistent updates now, but who knows. It's summer. Enjoy.

“So what do you guys think?” Lance asked as he, Hunk, and Pidge left Coran, Allura, and “Other Shiro”, who were deactivating his arm. 

“I would say this is unbelievable,” Pidge said, pushing up her glasses, “but we do fly sentient robotic lions in a galactic war against purple space cats.” 

Though she seemed humorous, Lance could tell this whole thing was bothering her. It was bothering him too. The man he had looked up to, the best pilot at the Garrison, had a twin? Or maybe a clone? Probably a clone, their Shiro never mentioned a brother. 

“I don’t know, guys.” Hunk bit his lip and looked back at the other Shiro. “He seems nice, but should we really trust him? We have no clue what the Galra are capable of. What if he’s a spy that’s been sent to kill us.” 

Now that was a good point. However, as Lance actually got to know their Shiro, he started to realize that the man wasn’t all he cracked up to be. He could be short-tempered, authoritative, and sometimes downright cruel with the things he said. He acted like his opinion was the only one that mattered and the best thing for everyone. Lance had been told time and time again to never meet your heroes because they were only a disappointment, but Shiro was...different. He couldn’t imagine Pidge’s older brother and father respecting or trusting this guy. Which was why it was so weird just how nice other Shiro was. He didn’t know if that was a point for or against him, but he seemed willing to cooperate with them and even allowed them to deactivate his arm. 

“I don’t know.” Pidge said. “We should get both Shiro’s back here and then figure what to do. It could be a Galra experiment--”

“It’s definitely a Galra experiment,” Lance said. 

“Yeah, but is our Shiro the original, or the clone?” 

Lance smiled and decided to try and ease the tension. “Does it matter? I’m sure our Shiro and other Shiro’s...brother are getting along great right now. We’ll find the ship and then make a switch and everyone will be happy.”

"I just hope we don't have to do that thing they do in movies where the two clones are fighting and then we have to make a decision which one to kill," Hunk said.

"No one is going to be killing anyone. I'm sure both Shiros are perfectly nice and everything is going great in other Shiro's ship," Lance said, grinning at them. 

oOoOoOo

“Fuck!” Keith spat as he twisted his arms and wrists once more. No matter how he he moved or how hard he twisted, the damn cuffs wouldn’t detach from the back of the bed. “Maybe Shiro’s stupid idea of getting a wooden bed wasn’t so stupid after all.” 

He slumped back down, the fight completely drained out of him. His arms and wrists were aching and his chest was still hurting from where Sendak had stepped on him. 

“Patience yields focus,” Keith said quietly, closing his eyes and trying to think through another plan. Before, when it was just Shiro on the ship, he could have probably succeeded, but now there were at least two high-ranking Galra officers on board, possibly more, and he had no chance. He tugged at the cuffs again. No movement. 

“What would Shiro do?” He stared at the ceiling. Shiro would probably remain quiet and compliant until he was absolutely sure he could win the fight and then pick the enemies off one by one. Keith wasn’t very good at being patient but maybe it was worth a try. 

There were two problems with that plan. One: he was handcuffed to the bed and didn’t have any sort of weapons. And two: Shiro was one of the enemies. He wasn’t sure if he could fight him; if he could hurt him. Shiro had contingency plans. He had so many contingency plans and Keith thought that every single one of them was stupid. Shiro had made him promise that if the Galra ever did something to him, ever turned him into some evil killing machine, Keith would do whatever it took to get away from him, including gravely injuring him if needed. Keith had promised Shiro that he would follow the plan because it got Shiro to stop pressuring him about it. He never thought he would have to actually go through with it. 

“First, we need to figure out Thace and Sendak, then we’ll worry about Shiro.” He didn’t feel much better about the plan, but hopefully he’d be able to knock Shiro out and deal with whatever brainwashing the Galra had done to him. He still needed a weapon. 

He groaned and hit his head against the back of the bed. Above him was a shelf full of trinkets that Shiro had collected over the years, “souvenirs” as he liked to call them. Then Keith spotted a box at the far end of the shelf. 

“That’s right, Shiro makes me put my knives in here.” He grinned. Normally he hated how overprotective Shiro was about the knives. ‘What if you cut yourself in your sleep?’ What if you drop it on your foot?’ What if you stab yourself?’ What we crash and the knives come flying out of their sheaths and stab you repeatedly while you sleep?’ What if you accidentally stab it into an electrical socket and electrocute yourself?’ Today, however, Keith was thankful that most of his collection was in here. If he could get a knife, he could stab Thace and Sendak when they weren’t expecting it, taking them out quickly. He didn’t even need to be uncuffed for it to work! 

He shifted and swung his foot up in the air. The heel hooked onto the shelf and Keith started sliding it towards the box. There was some movement outside. Keith stopped, holding his breath, unsure if he should drop the leg or not. The clang of footsteps approached the door. He tried to unhook his foot, but it was stuck on something. He panicked and tried to pull his leg free as the footsteps came closer. They were right at his door...and then they kept on walking. 

Keith let out a sigh of relief and continued to slide his foot along the shelf. The knife box was farther away than he had originally thought. He didn’t know if his legs were long enough to reach it. 

He leg was extended as far as possible, but he still needed a few inches. Grunting, he dragged the cuffs across the bed, causing a horrible screeching noise that made his eardrums feel as though they were about to pop. It did the trick, though, and he was able to move his heel a bit more, connecting with the box and knocking off the shelf. Keith barely managed to role out of the way as some of the knives tumble out, several hitting the floor. 

“Dammit.” There were only a few left on the bed. “It’s okay, I only need one.” He took a deep breath and rummaged around the five knives that were left on the bed. His foot managed to pull one out from underneath the covers, his mother’s knife. 

Keith paused. That was not in Shiro’s room the last time he checked. That was the only knife Shiro allowed him to keep at all times. Furthermore, it didn’t seem to have landed near any of the other knives. Did, did someone put it here? Keith didn’t know if that thought made him feel better or worse. Still, he had a weapon now, all he had to do was hide it and wait for Sendak and Thace to make an appearance. He also needed to figure out what the heck they wanted with Shiro. He’d figure it out, one way or another, and he’d make sure the Galra didn’t hurt Shiro again. 

oOoOoOo

When Thace and Shiro finally came and got him, Keith’s arms were numb from being in the air for so long. He had hidden the knife under his shirt and he felt comforted by his mother’s presence. 

“Comfortable?” Thace asked.

“Fuck you.” Keith spat. 

Thace didn’t seem phased by this and pressed a button on Keith’s cuffs that caused them to detach from the bed. He pulled Keith to his feet and led him through the hall. 

“How much longer are we going to do this?” Shiro growled, flanking Keith’s other side. 

Thace’s grip on his arm was strong enough so that he couldn’t break away, grab his knife, and stab him. “Are you in a hurry?” Thace asked with a bit of contempt in his voice. 

“This ship is a piece of junk and I don’t want to be around kids anymore.” 

“I’m not a child,” Keith said. The words hurt him more than he cared to admit. He had grown very close to Shiro these past few years, as was bound to happen when the man practically raised him and did everything he could to protect him. To hear that Shiro didn’t want to be around him anymore, it confirmed all of his fears, all of the nightmares he had had. 

Thace squeezed Keith’s arm, not hard, though. “You’re never going to find another job as cushy as this. You’ll be lucky if Haggar doesn’t dissect you when this is all over.” 

Keith’s heart skipped a beat. No, he wouldn’t allow Shiro to get hurt, even if he was tired of Keith and didn’t want to be around him anymore, he had gone above and beyond to keep Keith safe and he wouldn’t leave that debt unpaid. 

They turned another corner and landed in the small dining area Shiro had set up a while back. Sendak was there, tinkering with his arm. When he heard them approaching he lifted his head and smiled, showing off all of his sharp, jagged teeth. 

“So you didn’t manage to escape again? Are you going to do what I say or will there be problems?” Sendak growled. Behind him were two sentries with electrified rods in this hands. 

Keith’s eyes widened. He had seen the burn marks on Shiro’s body once and asked him about them. He had gone rigid, his face white and barely managed to tell Keith to never bring it up again. Keith’s eyes darted to Shiro, to see if he was okay or having a flashback, but the man just stood there, looking almost bored by this. 

A hand shot out and wrapped around Keith’s neck. 

“General!” Thace cried. 

“Look at me when I talk to you. Now, are you going to behave or not?” Sendak growled. 

Keith nodded. “Yes.”

Sendak released him and sat back in the chair. “Good. We’re about to contact Prisoner 6231 and I need you to behave so that he doesn’t suspect anything.” 

Keith furrowed his brows. “Prisoner 6231?” 

“Your Shiro, the original one,” Thace clarified. 

Keith thought over his words. The original one? He looked over at Shiro. Did that mean that there were two Shiros? Did that mean that this one was a clone? Keith had heard rumors that the Galra empire was looking into cloning, but he didn’t think they’d actually succeed. If this was a clone, then did that mean they wanted the original Shiro, his Shiro, and were going to hurt him. 

One of the contingency plans Shiro came up with was to do whatever the kidnappers wanted, even if that meant putting Shiro’s life at risk. Keith thought that one was stupid as well.

“I’m not going to let you hurt him.” The knife was pressed into his torso, if he could just figure out a way to get their eyes off of him, the feeling had come back into his hands so he could fight them. 

“We’re not going to hurt him,” other Shiro said, smiling at him. It almost seemed friendly, but it was too sharp to be friendly. Shiro’s smiles were always much softer, much warmer. Keith didn’t think he’d ever miss Shiro’s smiles so much. 

“Why should I trust you? You’re going to hurt him and I’m not going to let that happen.” The electricity on the rods crackled dangerously. Keith could handle a little pain, he had before.

“There was simply a mix-up. I need to get back to the Castle of Lions, which is where the original is now. As soon as we switch, you and the original will be free to go.” Other Shiro grinned. Keith was almost tempted to take his offer, but there was no way he or Shiro was getting out of this alive. 

“No.” 

Sendak motioned to the sentries behind him and they moved forward, charging up the rods again. 

Thace grabbed other Shiro’s arm and pulled him away from Keith. 

“General,” he said warningly. 

“I won’t do it anywhere visible, commander, rest assured.” Sendak grinned at Keith, his teeth flashing in the light. 

The sentries got closer to Keith and he wondered if he’d be able to bolt. Probably, but not for very long. Everyone here was taller than him and would be able to catch him quickly. The knife was still pressed against him. If he could just shimmy it out of place he might be able to take out the sentries, but then Sendak, other Shiro, and Thace would probably subdue him again anyways. 

The rods were positioned at his chest and Keith could smell the electricity in the air. 

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Don’t make me hurt you,” Sendak growled. 

Behind him, Thace caught Keith’s eye and held up a knife, a very familiar looking knife. It was his mother’s, but that wasn’t possible because his mother’s knife was still in his shirt. 

Thace twirled the knife in his fingers, being sure to show off the symbol on the hilt. Was he the one that put Keith’s knife in the bed? Come to think of it, there was no reason Thace needed to restrain him in Shiro’s room but he purposefully put him there after Keith escaped the first time. Not only that, but Thace seemed to be undermining a lot of Sendak’s orders, not overtly, but enough that he clearly shifted the plan towards something he favored. 

“I need your answer now, boy.” Sendak sounded angry and impatient, gnashing his teeth together and narrowing his eyes. 

Keith had to make a decision, trust Thace or not. Thace wanted him to go along with Sendak’s plan, at least for now. He had a blade that was the same as Keith’s mother’s, and she was a rebel against the Galra empire if he remembered correctly. 

“Okay I’ll do it!” Keith said. 

The sentries lowered their rods and Sendak smiled. “See, was that so difficult?”

Thace nodded approvingly and slipped the knife away. Hopefully Keith wasn’t trading one evil Galra for another. 

“Great, we should be in range of the castle shortly,” other Shiro said. He came forward and grabbed Keith’s arm, yanking him up and dragging him towards the cockpit. “Don’t try anything or we’ll shoot you in front of him,” he growled in his ear.

Keith didn’t respond. He wondered if there was a way to let Shiro know what was going on. However, despite Shiro having contingency plans for everything, he never did make one for “clone Shiro with two Galra commanders, one of whom may or may not be a good guy, trying to use Keith to get back to some space castle and probably kill them both”. For the time being, Keith was just going to have to trust Thace and come up with an escape plan on the side.


	8. Ghost Cats, Quintessence, and Mac N' Cheese

Shiro winced as he tried to move his arm, only to be reminded that it had been deactivated. It didn’t help that he was right handed and his prosthetic just so happened to be on the right side. Now it was tied up in a sling, the metal would have ripped from his stump had it just been left to dangle. He was glad that Allura and Coran, though they were suspicious of him, weren’t cruel or intent on causing him any unnecessary harm. 

“Fascinating,” Coran said as he poked and prodded around the prosthetic, “it appears to run off some sort of quintessence.”

“Yeah, mine,” Shiro huffed. 

The arm had been deactivated by a little round plate that had attached itself to the metal. As soon as it was deactivated, Shiro felt...clearer, almost a if a toxic connection had been severed. He realized the remnants of a headache, that were always persistent though in different levels of pain, had disappeared and for the first time in a long time he felt as though a crushing weight had been lifted off his chest. He thought he would feel weaker and slower, but instead felt more energetic and alive. He wanted to ask Coran if his little metal plate had anything to do with it, but didn’t want to push his luck. 

Coran looked at him and narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean it’s powered by your quintessence? How did you get it?”

Shiro shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t like talking about this but if it would help make everyone more at ease, he’d suffer through it. The other kids had left the room earlier, not that Shiro could blame them. “I don’t remember a lot about my time with the Galra. One day I had my arm, the next...well.” Shiro looked down at the piece of alien technology that was now a part of him. “I’m guessing this kind of thing isn’t really common,” he said, dragging his thoughts away from the spiral of anxiety and depression he was seconds away from collapsing into. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Having your quintessence integrated into a prosthetic is common, since it helps your body accept it, but having the actual machinery powered by it, it’s odd to say the least.”

“And you’re sure you aren’t a spy for Zarkon?” Allura asked. She still had not fully accepted Shiro and was poised to strike at any moment. 

“I’m sure. Though, I suppose if I were a spy, I wouldn’t tell you.” Shiro laughed, trying to ease the tension. Allura did not look amused. Shiro’s laughter died off. “Anyways, there’s not really a lot I can do to prove it, at least not until Keith get’s here.”

Allura didn’t seem reassured by this. “I’ve never met your companion, he might be just as dangerous as you.”

Shiro took a deep breath and reminded himself that these people had every right to be suspicious. “Keith’s just a kid, he’s really not a danger to you.”

“That’s what you say, but you have to admit, this entire situation is a bit strange.” Coran sighed and scooted away from Shiro’s arm, seeming content with his inspection.

“Is other Shiro’s arm like mine? In that it is powered by quintessence?” Shiro asked. 

“No, it has quintessence in it, but it isn’t powered by it.” Coran answered. 

Shiro stared down at his arm and frowned. He had never thought it was weird, then again he was thrust into this alien world so how was he supposed to separate weird because it was alien and weird because it wasn’t supposed to happen? It was sort of like the comforting presence at the back of his head, which, now that Shiro thought about it, was amplified as soon as his arm was turned off. He was certain that it had something to do with the Galra and their plan for him, which seemed to include cloning, but what. 

He looked at Allura and Coran, who were sitting at the other side of the room, watching him, studying him. The presence in the back of his mind purred and warmed him, like a phantom hug that he could feel, but he couldn’t see who had given it to him. Did this count as weird, or normal? These were a different species than Shiro and Keith had encountered before, but why would the castle, why would this presence welcome him so readily when its owners or creators did not. 

Well, they still hadn’t managed to locate Keith and maybe learning about the presence would help Allura and the others trust him more. Might as well ask. 

“Do you guys have ghost cats roaming around here?” Shiro’s mouth worked faster than his brain and he was cursing the stupid choice of words. Ghost cats? Seriously? What kind of stupid Saturday morning cartoon did he think he was in? Also, while the Galra certainly looked like humanoid purple space cats, he had yet to find a perfect substitution for the Earth species. All the alien cats had poison spines, or were ten feet tall, or breathed fire (for some reason, Keith really wanted to adopt that one and it took all of Shiro’s persuasive powers and a new knife to get him to leave the thing). 

Allura and Coran looked confused. 

“Sorry, it’s just, as soon as I got on the ship there’s been this sort of presence in the back of my mind. It reminds me of a cat, but I haven’t seen any.” He tried to clarify. 

Allura and Coran went from confused to absolutely pale. He didn’t think someone could lose color in their face so quickly and he was afraid they were about to keel over. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you guys. It feels friendly, whatever it is,” Shiro said, laughing nervously. Maybe they didn’t know about the ghost cat and were now afraid they were haunted. To be honest, they probably were (Shiro thanked his lucky stars he never had to deal with the goddamn paranormal in space. Living Galra were bad enough). 

“How is that possible? You aren’t a paladin.” Allura whispered. She was really starting to scare him and he cursed himself for bringing up such a stupid concept. 

But there was that word again, “paladin”. He knew what a paladin was, of course, the word was on Earth, but he didn’t know why everyone seemed to think that he was a so-called “black paladin”. Should he bring that up to these guys as well? Judging by their reaction to the ghost cat thing, it was likely that they really would pass out from the information. 

“Sorry I brought it up. I was just curious. She feels nice, whatever she is. It’s almost like she’s comforting me and helping me to focus. I don’t think she means you any harm.” 

Allura shook her head and rushed out of the room. “I have to go check something.” 

Shiro looked at Coran who just shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll figure this out, my boy. For now, let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll whip us all up something to eat.”  
He stood up, almost tumbling over with the change in the distribution of his weight. 

“Alright?” Coran asked, coming onto one side and helping steady him. 

“Yeah, I’m just not used to having the dead weight. I guess I never realized how heavy this thing was.” 

He led him through the halls to the kitchen where the kids were sitting. Pidge was working on a laptop while Lance and Hunk seemed to be trying to play some sort of game. They looked up at their entrance. 

“Is everything alright?” Hunk asked. 

Coran still looked a little pale, but he smiled broadly at the kids and led Shiro to a stool for him to sit on. “Not at all. I was just thinking I was going to make something for us to ea--”

“NO!” Came the unanimous reply. 

“If everyone’s hungry, then I’ll make something for us to eat,” Hunk said, abandoning the game, though Lance didn’t seem to be complaining. “I raided Vrepit Sal’s kitchen before Varkon started chasing after me.”

Shiro quirked an eyebrow. “You can make Vrepit Sal’s food edible?”

“He can make anything edible.” Pidge snorted, furiously typing away and not looking up. 

“I doubt that,” he said as Hunk started pulling out containers of gray mush and questionably fresh vegetables. 

“Hunk can cook anything and make it edible,” Lance added, grinning at Shiro. 

If Keith were here, he’d probably be arguing with Lance in a millisecond because of the cocky, self-assured attitude. God, Shiro really wanted to get back to his ship. He missed his little brother and the space they called home. 

“Hemlock.” He answered simply, trying to pull himself out of the spiral he was about to fall into yet again. The ghost cat in the back of his mind purred affectionately again. He hoped whatever Allura was doing wasn’t going to take the ghost cat away from him. She was currently his only source of comfort. 

Lance opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it again, pouting slightly. 

“How you word things is important,” Shiro said. 

Lance sighed and sat next to him. “Fine, you’re right. But Hunk could probably make the hemlock at least taste good.”

“I’ve never had hemlock, so I wouldn’t know how it tasted or if it needs improvement.”

Pidge snorted. “It’s a plant, how good could it taste.”

Shiro groaned and put his face in his palm. “Oh God, there’s two of you.” 

“What?” Pidge asked, the typing dying away. 

“Keith hates plants as well. You have to eat a varied diet if you want to be healthy.” 

“Jeez, are you a dad or what?” Lance scoffed. 

“I agree with Shiro,” Hunk said, heating a pan and pouring some of the gray stuff into it. “Besides, there’s so much flavor that you can get from vegetables.” 

“You only say that because you’re one of the weird kids that likes peas,” Lance argued.

“Peas are delicious.” Shiro said. Then, “God, I miss peas. Mangos too. Strawberries, blueberries, avocados, a decent burrito. Mac and cheese, dear God I would give my left arm to have a bowl of good mac and cheese.” 

Being around Keith, it was easy to shove the feelings of homesickness deep down and bury them, ignore them so he could focus on other things. Being around other humans who had grown up on Earth, it was more difficult. Those feelings were coming back up out of the ground like zombies in a science fiction b-movie. He wondered how long these kids had been off Earth, if they missed the same foods, the same activities, the same things that Shiro missed. 

“Dude, I’ve got you.” Hunk pointed the end of a spatula-looking utensil at Shiro before turning back to the kitchen and cooking with intense furosity. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to peek around and get a clue. 

“It’s a surprise. I want to see how close I can get to the real thing.” 

Shiro looked at Lance who just shrugged. “I’m not really allowed to help any more.”

“You lit the ceiling on fire!” Hunk shrieked. “How did you do that?” 

He looked at Pidge who shrugged as well. “I don’t help either.”

“You almost poisoned us! I told you specifically to remove the spines before you boiled the callofruit!” 

Shiro looked at Coran, who just crossed his arms and sniffed. “Since I’m not needed here, I’ll go help the princess.” He stomped out of the kitchen, looking like a child who had just had his favorite toy taken away from him. 

“Is he alright?” 

Pidge went back to typing furiously on her computer. “He’s fine. He just doesn’t like that we don’t like his cooking.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him. Finally, Hunk spoke. “Shiro, if Coran ever offers you to eat something, never ever touch it. I’ve had dog food that’s tasted better than his cooking.”

“Why did you taste...never mind, I don’t want to know.” He sighed and went back to watching the bustle in the kitchen, with Pidge’s typing in the background and Lance setting up for a game of Solitaire. 

“Hey, Lance,” Shiro said, causing the boy to look up at him, “you want to play a game with me. It’s going to have to be something I can do with one arm though.” 

Lance grinned. “Yeah, we made a makeshift checkers board. That should work, right?” 

He nodded. “I think. It’s been awhile since I’ve played so you’ll have to help me with the rules.”

Pidge snorted again. “Don’t tell him that. He’ll just cheat.” 

“I do not cheat, you’re just a sore loser.” 

“Am not.”

“Am too!” 

Shiro couldn’t help but smile at the scene. It felt...normal, something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He wondered if maybe, after all of this was done, he and Keith could find a place here. Keith would probably have a harder time adjusting to it, especially with Lance’s personality. However, Shiro was tired of running and fearing for his life. This little bit of normalcy in the wake of a universal war, it was something that he had been missing for a long time, and it was nice to have just a taste of it. The ghost cat in the back of his mind purred in agreement and, for some reason, seemed to reassure him that Keith would find his place in this group as well. 

Now, if only they could find the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro is having a much better time than Keith is.


	9. The Lion Chooses Her Paladin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus, Season 6 killed me and I was being just a tad lazy. Also, I have no idea how to measure distance in space ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Shiro was convinced, if anyone could make hemlock edible, it would be Hunk. 

“How did you make Vrepit Sal’s food taste like Mac and Cheese?” Shiro asked as he shoved another mouthful of the stuff in. “Like, it actually tastes like good mac and cheese, not just the crappy stuff they served at school cafeterias.” He paused and looked at the kids. “Is school lunch food still awful.”

“Yep.”

“The worst”

“Again, dog food is better than that stuff.”

He shrugged and went back to his meal. “I would say that was the one good thing about getting abducted, but the food I got as a prisoner wasn’t much better.” 

The mood quickly soured and Shiro forgot that not everyone was as used to his little quips about being a tortured prisoner as Keith was. 

Lance cleared his throat. “Do you know why there’s two of you, though?” 

He shook his head. “I thought I was just an experiment, like in an old sci-fi horror movie. I guess I was, in a way, but I don’t know what they’d need two of me for, and why only one of me was sent back to Earth.”

“There’s got to be something in the data,” Pidge said, typing on her computer once more. “The problem is that all of these projects have codenames and there are so many, reading through all of them would take years.”

“That’s what happens when the empire takes up 99% of the known universe,” Shiro said, looking at her screen as numbers and letters flashed by. “I don’t suppose you could just do a search of my name and see what files pop up.”

Pidge shook her head. “There’s no reference of you by your name.” 

They all looked dejected, but then Shiro remembered he had a prisoner number. He tried to forget what they called him, but after five years it had become so ingrained to his identity that he still could recall it. 

“Try Prisoner 6231. That was my identifier when I was there.” 

Pidge typed some more and up popped several files. “Woah.”

“How many are there?” Hunk asked, also peering over at the laptop. He reached over to touch something only to have Pidge slap his hand away. 

“A few hundred.”

“Jesus, I didn’t think I was that popular.” Shiro sucked in air through his teeth. 

Pidge clicked open a few files. “These seem to be mostly observational reports, nothing about cloning or leaving you on Earth.”

Suddenly, Shiro didn’t want her to see what was in those reports. They were all children after all, none of them looking a day over eighteen. Plus, Pidge’s brother and father were still possible prisoners of the Galra empire and could be going through the same things Shiro was. 

“Well, if you were cloned, maybe those details are under other Shiro’s file?” Lance suggested. 

“Yeah, but I don’t know that number.” Shiro sighed. “It was a good idea. Hopefully when he and Keith get here we can figure this out. I want to know what’s going on just as much as you guys.” 

Hunk dished some more “mac and cheese” into his bowl. “What’s the story with Keith? He looked human on the security footage, but I didn’t think you had a brother back on Earth.”

Shiro paused, trying to decide how much information he should tell these kids. “I’m not really sure what happened. I helped him break out of the Galra prison I was stationed on, or rather we both kind of helped each other escape. He was about twelve at the time and from what I gathered had been on his own for awhile. He’s half-human, half-galra--”

“Those exist?” Lance cut him off.

“Yeah, there’s actually a lot of mixed race individuals in the universe. The problem is that Haggar really likes Galra half-breeds, since she can help bring out the best of both species.”

“They were going to experiment on him?” Hunk shrieked, looking about ready to throw up.

“It makes sense,” Pidge stated. “The Galra seem to have a lot of experiments on quintessence and improving their soldiers and whatnot.”

“Yeah, but to think that they’re doing this to children. Man, every time I learn something new about the Galra, it just makes me want to defeat them even more.”

Lance scoffed. “Like enslaving entire planets wasn’t bad enough?”

“Yeah, but I just can’t think of how they keep getting worse.”

Shiro patted Hunk’s shoulder. He should probably steer the conversation to another topic before he had a panic attack; he could feel the anxiety creeping up on him. 

“There are people who are working to fight against Zarkon. Like you guys. Besides, now that I know you exist, maybe Keith and I can be of some help. We’ve got a pretty good handle on the Empire, years on the run will do that to you.” 

“Holy shit!” Pidge exclaimed. 

“Language!” Shiro replied automatically. Yep, trying to raise an emo teenager with a penchant for cursing really did turn him into a boring dad.

“I looked up Keith in the bounty hunter database and he’s done some things.” She turned her laptop so the others could see it. Sure enough, there was a picture of Keith along with several attached files that were no doubt detailing his crimes. 

“Is 3,000,000 GAC a lot?” Lance asked as they watched a small video of Keith decking a Galra soldier in the face. He landed a pretty good punch on the soldier's jaw, causing Pidge to hum in approval. 

Shiro cringed at the memory. They had barely made it off the planet alive. “Yeah, that’s a good amount. I’m not sure what it is in American Dollars.” He read through some of the crimes that Keith was wanted for and furrowed his brow. “That’s strange.” He muttered.

“What?” 

“Hm, some of these crimes weren’t ones that he committed.”

“Well, they probably just wanted to pin them on someone,” Lance suggested. “You know, instead of admitting that the all powerful empire doesn’t know who did what.”

“No, that’s not it, most of these were things that I did. And I know they had video evidence for at least some of them.”

Pidge turned her computer around and typed some things in her computer. “That’s strange that you’re not wanted.” She looked at him, her eyes boring into him. “You are an escaped prisoner, right?” 

Ah, now Shiro realized why this was suspicious for them. If he really was wanted by the Galra Empire, then why did they have no record of him for a bounty? They had one for Keith, and had a fairly high reward for him, but Shiro was the one that commited most of the big stuff. It worried him, to say the least. 

“If Shiro was cloned, and the Galra want something to do with the clone,” Hunk postulated, “then maybe they don’t want to risk exposing their plan?”

The kids were all quiet for a moment and Shiro felt the need to soothe their fears. 

“Let’s wait until we get the other Shiro back on this ship. I’m sure we can figure this out. I am not working for the Galra empire, though, I promise you that. Just look at some of these crimes I committed.”

Pidge scrolled through the files. “Did you really blow up a slaver ship?”

Shiro chuckled at that. “Yeah, they took Keith and then the commander pissed me off so once I got all the slaves off the ship, I blew it up.”

“And you did that single-handedly?” 

“What can I say, the arm comes in handy.” He patted the useless piece of metal that was bound to his torso to take some pressure off the stump. “Plus, I was getting that kid off that ship, no matter what.”

“You didn’t want to leave him because he was slowing you down?” Lance asked. 

He was horrified by the idea. What sick person would leave a child behind? “No, absolutely not. Even if it wasn’t Keith, I wasn’t stopping until I got everyone off that ship.”

“That’s actually really brave of you,” Pidge said. 

He smiled and ruffled her hair. “Thanks. I was terrified the entire time, but it doesn’t matter what you’re feeling, it only matters what kind of action you take. You guys are pretty brave too, leaving Earth to defeat Haggar and Zarkon.”

“I don’t feel brave,” Hunk admitted. 

“Like I said, actions speak louder than feelings. Besides, having a little fear is good, it keeps you alert.”

Hunk seemed placated by this and smiled. “If you say so. Hey, what kinds of foods does Keith like to eat? Maybe I’ll make something for him when he and our Shiro get here.”

Shiro scoffed. “He doesn’t have any preference whatsoever. At first I thought it was a Galra thing to be able to eat such disgusting food, but even they seem to have higher standards than him.”

“So he can eat Vrepit Sal’s food?” Hunk seemed to be in awe and a little bit terrified.

“Um, no, that’s a bit too much for his taste buds, but he can eat more of it than most people.” 

“Well then, this is a good time for me to experiment.” Hunk turned to the stove once more and started pouring, measuring, chopping and stirring. 

Shiro smiled and let himself be lulled by the sounds in the background but he was interrupted by Allura and Coran’s entrance. They both looked slightly on edge and he desperately wanted to make them feel better, but there was nothing he could say or do until Keith and other Shiro got here. 

“Shiro, could you come with us? We need to discuss something.” Allura’s voice was level, but there was a hint of something else. Maybe frustration? 

He pushed himself up and walked towards them. 

“Do you need help?” Lance asked, looking up from his game of solitaire. 

“No, this shouldn’t take long. We just want to check something,” Coran said. He seemed to no longer be upset that the kids didn’t want to eat his food. 

They walked out of the kitchen and started weaving their way back through the halls. 

“What is it? Have you found Keith and other Shiro yet?” he asked. 

“There is a ship that’s shown up on our radar, but we can’t hail it.” Coran answered. 

“How far away is it?” 

“A few hundred parsecs.” 

He hummed. “Yeah, that’s probably just out of range, if it is our ship. But that’s good news that you can at least see it. I was worried your Shiro wouldn’t know where to look.” 

Allura nodded. They stopped in front of a large metal door that looked to be leading towards a hangar. She took a deep breath and turned towards him. 

“Shiro, you said earlier that you were experiencing almost a cat-like presence in your mind?” 

He nodded. “Yeah, she’s quieted down a bit, but she’s definitely still there.”

A strange look passed over Allura’s face. Coran was twirling his mustache but seemed to remain pleasant. She said nothing else but pushed the door open. Shiro blinked a bit, his eyes adjusting to the bright lights before they settled on what appeared to be a large robotic cat. 

He almost laughed. Ships couldn’t purr in the back of his mind, they weren’t sentient. “What is this?” He stepped forward into the room, with neither Allura nor Coran stopping him. 

“This is the Black Lion, the leader of Voltron,” Coran said, walking behind Shiro. 

He felt a strange pull to the lion, almost like the pull he felt to the caves back on Earth. At the moment, there was just the humm of electricity from the lights, the lion remained motionless. However, Shiro couldn’t help but feel as though there was something much more powerful at play here. The lion was motionless, yes, but it didn’t feel like a machine that had been turned off, rather someone or something that was asleep. He took a few steps forward and looked up, marveling at its size. He reached out to touch the paw, and lay it down gently. 

It all happened so fast. Allura and Coran were standing behind him and when he touched the paw, they sucked in a breath. The lion, which had previously been unmoving sprang to life, it’s eyes lighting up and limbs bending and stretching. Before Shiro could move, the doors opened and he and the lion were hurtling out into space. He gasped for air, trying to figure out what sick joke Allura and Coran were trying to play. But then, the air return to his lungs and he was rolling into the metal beast. He tries to regain his breath, coughing and choking as the oxygen filled his lungs. 

Finally, he felt like he was back to normal and sat up slowly, the stump of his right arm screaming with pain as the prosthetic pulled on it. He hobbled towards what appeared to be the pilot’s seat and gasped. The Castle of Lions was right in front of him. The counsel was on and blinking. The purr had returned to the back of his mind, but it was much stronger and potent than before, also it was much more tangible than before. He could almost feel the lion’s emotions at this point, something that he didn’t know if he cared for. 

He sat in the seat and took a look around. 

“What the fuck?” 

oOoOoOo

Thace thought that he was being a very good undercover agent. After all, he had yet to reveal his identity to anyone (other than Ulaz but that was different and there was a potted plant involved). He managed to keep a hold of his morals while still casting suspicion onto much more evil Galra soldiers, thereby helping to cull some of the more...intense individuals from Haggar’s reins, and he got a good amount of information for the Blades. 

But holy shit if it wasn’t frustrating trying to keep his cover while also trying to keep Sendak from killing everyone he was trying to protect. 

“We shouldn’t kill the boy,” Thace said, finally, after listening to Sendak talk about just how he wanted Keith to be executed after they managed to contact the Castle of Lions. 

Sendak stopped. “Care to repeat that? I don’t believe I heard you correctly.” 

Thace racked his brain for a good explanation as to why they shouldn’t kill Keith that wouldn’t blow his cover. The clone seemed equally interested in what he had to say, the bastard. 

He sighed and wished he had Ulaz’s insane skill of getting people to like and trust him before launching into an explanation. Really, he should have come up with an excuse when he got his assignment since he knew Sendak was blood thirsty. 

“Prisoner 6231 had been out of our surveillance for almost six cycles now. In his time as a prisoner, he was upgraded with a powerful weapon for an arm as well as superior fighting and combat skills, not to mention he naturally has a good mind with it comes to tactics. He did manage to take down the reigning champion in the pits despite being smaller, weaker, and with a weaker weapon.”

“Are you saying I won’t be able to control him?” Sendak growled. 

Thace thought over his next words carefully, not wanting to cause more harm. “I’m saying that we have no idea what this man is capable of. After having escaped, not two months later he managed to single handedly board and destroy a slave ship, after freeing all the slaves and humiliating the commanding officer.”

Sendak’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“This man is dangerous, but we know he has an attachment to the boy. If he suspects that any harm has come to him, it’ll be much more difficult for us to handle. We can’t risk losing a paladin or lion because Prisoner 6231 was underestimated. Keep the boy alive, and use him to solicit compliance.”

Sendak stroked his chin and nodded. “I think you’re right, commander. Besides, the other paladins will likely not want to risk the death of an innocent life as well.”

“Their compassion is a weakness,” Thace agreed. He couldn’t wait to punch Sendak in his furry little face. It also wouldn’t hurt to punch the clone in his smug face as well. 

Sendak nodded. “Fine, the boy will be kept alive after the transmission. Once we have all the paladins and lions, though, we will kill him.”

“Of course.” Thace knew he needed to get Keith off this ship, he just didn’t know how. If this plan didn’t work and Sendak managed to kill the other paladins, the Blade would need one alive if they were to have any hope in winning this war. 

That was his focus now. They still had some time, but it was quickly dwindling. There was a beep on the counsel in front of them. They were in hailing range for the Castle. 

Sendak motioned to the guards. “Get the boy, try not to hurt him too much or anywhere visible.” He stood up so that the clone could take his seat. “You best not do anything to damage our mission. If this goes wrong, I’ll make sure that Haggar sees to your punishment personally.” He growled. 

He and Thace shifted so that they weren’t in view of the camera when they managed to get ahold of the castle. Keith came stumbling in, flanked by Sentries who each had a grasp on his elbows. He glared at them, but allowed himself to be shoved into his seat. 

“Don’t try to be clever, boy. Thace has kindly vouched for me not to kill you, but I will change my mind if you do anything to rouse suspicion. I don’t think you’d want your companion to see your head explode, would you?” Sendak growled. 

Keith looked surprised, his eyes flickering over to Thace. Thace held his breath, hoping the kid was smart and he wouldn’t blow his cover. Thankfully, he nodded. 

“Opening up a hailing channel,” the clone said, flicking a few switches. 

Thace was really running out of time now, but he could come up with a plan. He had to come up with a plan. The channel remained silent for a few minutes. Then, a human appeared on the screen.


	10. Piloting and Leading with One Arm is Difficult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this took forever, I'm sorry! Things have been hectic but I'll try to update more regularly now.

“Shiro! Get back here!” Allura shouted as Shiro blindly mashed every button on the counsel. 

He let out a cry at some sort of liquid started raining down from the ceiling. “How? What button do I push?” He smashed a few more and managed to turn off the liquid, but now there seemed to be a blade clamped between the teeth of the lion. At least Allura didn’t seem angry. Maybe that was because she could see Shiro’s stressed face on the little screen. 

He pushed another button and the lion shot forward. “Why do none of these have labels? Where’s the manual?” He cried. He liked to think of himself as a fairly good pilot, maybe not as good as Keith, but he knew how to handle a ship. The lion itself seemed to be laughing at him, enjoying this show. 

“What do you mean a manual?” Coran asked, pushing his way onto the screen.

“Something that will tell me how to fly this thing! Why did it eat me?” Shiro would have assumed that Allura and Coran were playing at something, but their equally perplexed and stressed reactions told him that they did not like this one bit. 

“What’s going on, guys?” Lance’s voice came floating into the screen.

“Maybe if you stop mashing the buttons, we can figure this out!” Allura snapped. 

“I’m not the one that got eaten by a giant robot lion ghost cat!” Shiro snapped back.

The other paladins managed to cram into the camera and were staring at Shiro intently. 

“You’re piloting the black lion?” Hunk asked. 

Shiro pulled on a lever that looked like a parking brake. The lion started doing barrel rolls. “I’m not sure if piloting would be the right word.” He grunted, pulling on the lever again to stop the spinning. “Why are there no seatbelts in this thing? You guys could get hurt.” 

Pidge snorted. “You really are a dad.” 

“Shiro,” Allura pushed her way past all the paladins and back to the front, “the lions are sentient. You’re not flying a thing, but rather a living being, it needs to be an agreement with both you and the lion or else you’re not going anywhere.”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “That would have been nice to know before I got sprayed with...what is this?” He sniffed his arm, which smelled fruity and somewhat musty. 

“Ah, that would be Yarnol Pheromones.” Coran said happily. 

Shiro froze. “What?”

“Yeah, it helps with the breeding.” 

“Why would you need help with breeding? A Yarnol couldn’t fly this thing. It doesn’t have hands!” 

“It was a repopulation attempt. Back in the day, they were having a real hard time getting the Yarnol’s to mate, so Blaytz--”

“Stop, please.” He felt sick, but took a deep breath. “Please tell me you guys have showers on the castle.”

“We do, but that’ll take a few quintants to fully go away. I suggest staying away from Alpha Centruiron Twelve for awhile. The repopulation attempt was a smashing success!” 

“Duly noted.” He huffed. He decided that he needed to get control of this lion and get back to the castle. He had to be there when Keith called or else they would likely never get him to trust them. 

He closed his eyes, and listened to the distant purring that was so prevalent in the castle. 

It took a moment, but slowly, Shiro started to focus more and more and the purring was no longer so abstract, but rather becoming clearer and clearer. 

The beast was calm and motherly in a way Shiro had never known. He felt like he was being hugged. The lion told him what to do, but he frowned. 

“My right arm isn’t working.” He said, though he still felt a bit silly talking out loud to nothing. The beast frowned, or at least, that’s what it felt like. A few seconds ticked by before they started communicating again. Shiro reached out to one of the levers, hesitated for a bit, wondering if he should trust it. Then he figured that trust had actually gotten him pretty far, despite the circumstance. He remembered Ulaz and how his kindness had been the only thing that had kept him and Keith alive long enough to escape. He gripped the lever and pulled it. Instantly, the beast reacted and started going back towards the castle. It took a bit of maneuvering, since Shiro’s right arm was out of commission, but they managed to go back into the dock. 

The mouth opened and Shiro was able to finally exit the lion, though he was confronted almost immediately by the Paladins, Allura, and Coran, who were all looking at him expectantly. 

“So, do these things normally eat your guests and hold them hostage in space?” Shiro joked, trying to lighten the mood. 

The kids didn’t seem to notice. “I thought only the paladins were able to pilot the lions,” Pidge said. 

Allura pursed her lips. “It could be that Black was confused, since your quintessence is probably very similar, if you are clones.” 

Shiro ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I do like being in the lion. She was comforting.” He smiled and patted the metal leg beside him. The lion seemed to give an appreciative hum back. 

Before they could discuss it any more, a loud series of beeps rang out through the castle. 

“Someone’s hailing us,” Allura said, turning away from Shiro and going to look at a screen. 

“That could be Keith and other Shiro,” Shiro said, going to join her. He had had a great time with the kids, but he was anxious to get back to his normal life. He didn’t want to intrude where someone else was living. 

They all gathered around the screen in what looked to be the main control room. Shiro couldn’t help but gawk at the place. Truly magnificent and high tech, he was a bit jealous. He wished he had had more time to explore, but with Allura so suspicious and his little adventure with the sentient robot lion, things had been kind of hectic. 

The screen was static for a minute before a picture formed. Shiro almost cried with relief because there was Keith, looking as sullen as ever, but alive and uninjured. He also had his feet up on the dashboard. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to put your feet down?” Shiro said. 

Lance snickered behind him. Keith rolled his eyes and put his feet down. 

“Oh, wow.” 

His attention was turned to the other occupant in the small vessel. It really was him, except not. It was like looking in a mirror, but there was some differences Shiro could spot, so less like looking in a mirror and more like one of those spot the difference games. 

“Wow, I guess something weird really is going on here.” The clone leaned forward, his brow furrowed as he studied Shiro. He wanted to shrink under that gaze, but continues to stand tall. 

“Keith, are you alright?” 

Keith paused and right then Shiro could tell something was wrong. “Yeah,” he finally said, “I’m fine.” 

He was a terrible liar and he was giving Shiro all the tells, rubbing his mouth, avoiding eye contact, shrinking back into his seat. Also, his eyes seemed to be darting to one specific spot in the room. The galra wanted a clone for a reason and they still didn’t know what that reason was. 

“Shiro, are you alright?” Allura pushed forward to start talking with other Shiro. 

“Yeah, we had a bit of a scare but everything should be fine now.”

“Why did you go with Keith if you didn’t know him?” Hunk asked. The others nodded. Shiro was glad he asked instead of himself, if something was wrong, he didn’t want anyone to become suspicious. 

Other Shiro narrowed his eyes, but answered the question. “My head’s still a bit scrambled from my time as a prisoner and there are a lot of missing pieces. The kid recognized me and...I don’t know, I thought maybe he had some answers but then everything happened so fast and we had a close call with some of Zarkon’s forces. Also, this thing doesn’t move very fast. I think the Flux Carburetor is flooded.”

“Oh, not again. We just replaced that thing last week.” Shiro sighed.

“I told you not to buy from Johnny No-Thumbs.” Keith grumbled. 

Shiro was about to argue that Johnny No-Thumbs had been a respectable business partner when other Shiro’s eyes darted to where Keith kept looking. 

“Look,” he said, “the ship’s in a bad state right now. There’s a planet nearby. How about we land there and figure this whole thing out.”

“In a bit of a hurry?” He couldn’t help the words slip from his mouth and prayed that they wouldn’t be seen as a threat or suspicion.

“No offense, but have you tasted Hunk’s cooking?”

“Yeah?” 

“Then you’ll know that it’s a hell of a lot better than foa flavored meal bars.” Other Shiro grinned and Hunk beamed with praise. 

“Can’t fault you there,” Shiro said. He wished there was a way to talk to Keith and figure out what was going on, but he couldn’t. All he knew is that someone was definitely in that ship with them, someone who wasn’t on camera and who was likely Galra and likely an enemy. Shiro just hoped he could figure out a plan with the others that wouldn’t involve getting Keith killed. 

“No problem. We’ll head there now. The atmosphere looks breathable and it appears to be uninhabited,” Allura said, seeming more at ease the longer the conversation went on. “It’ll be good to clear this whole mess up.” 

The call ended and the paladins all stepped away with smiles on their faces. 

“I’m going to make our Shiro his favorite foods!” Hunk said proudly. “And maybe Keith too, he looks like he could use something that isn’t a meal replacement bar.” 

Shiro watched the kids walk off, each seeming a little more at ease. 

“Allura!” He called, catching her before she left. “Did that seem strange to you?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She sniffed. 

“Look, I don’t know how your Shiro acts, but I know how Keith acts and something was definitely off, I think we need to be careful.” 

“You can think that all you like, but right now you are the one who’s suspicious, not our Shiro. He’s had many chances to sabotage us and hasn’t yet. You, on the other hand, have been here less than a quintant and have yet to show that you aren’t working with the Galra.”

She turned on her heels and left Shiro with a nervous Coran hovering on the side. 

oOoOoOo

Thace yanked Keith back to his room, his arm gripping him tightly, likely leaving a bruise. 

“Ow. What is your problem?” Keith snapped. Maybe he had made a mistake with Thace, maybe he wasn’t on his side and was now going to kill him. 

Thace didn’t answer and threw him into his room. He stood to the side in parade rest as Sendak walked in carrying one of Keith’s knives. 

“This is quite the collection you got here. A lot of rare blades and weapons.” He said with a smug grin. 

“Go to hell,” he snarled. 

“That’s the kind of aggression I want. I ran you through our database and discovered that you’re a half-breed.”

Keith bristled at the word. Half-breed was a slur, something that people used to demean beings of mixed race and make them seem like animals. He glanced over at Thace, the tightness in his jaw suggested he didn’t like the term any more than Keith did. 

“The human side seems to have taken over your physical appearance, but the Galra blood is still pumping through your veins.” He stopped to stare at him with a sick grin on his face. “Now, the plan at this moment is to use you to control the original and that may or may not involve some maiming, just so he knows we’re serious.”

“He was held prisoner by you people for years, he knows what you’re capable of.”

“Exactly, but spilling blood is fun.” Sendak paused. “You have the spirit of a warrior in you, a potentially great one if you allowed yourself to flourish. Join the Galra Empire, rise above your station and be something other than a trash collecting mutt who will likely die of starvation in the next few decapheobes.” 

“Go to hell.” Keith spat. There was no way he was joining these people. They had taken everything away from him and hurt Shiro beyond repair. He was not going to give in and join them in torturing innocent people. 

Sendak sighed. “As you wish. We’ll come by later to rough you up a bit. Maybe cut out your tongue so you can finally be quiet.” 

Keith tried to remain strong, staring at Sendak, unwilling to show his fear to the man. Sendak looked away and walked out the door, followed by Thace. 

Keith scrambled off the bed and began trying to pry the air vent covering off. If he could crawl through the vents, he could make his way to the escape pod and get out of here. Footsteps sounded outside his door and he quickly dropped back to the bed, hiding his bloodied fingernails. 

The door slid open to reveal Thace. 

“What was that about? What are you going to do?” Keith asked, desperate for at least one other person to be on his side. 

Thace quickly made his way over to him and before Keith realized what was happening, stuck a needle in his neck. 

“Sorry, Haggar and Zarkon cannot get the red lion. I have to make sure at least one paladin in out of their reach.” 

Keith’s vision almost immediately went fuzzy and he brought a hand to his neck, trying to feel the injection sight. He tried to yell at Thace, tried to fight him, but his limbs were so heavy and he was so tired. The last thing he remembered was falling forward and thinking of how much he missed Shiro.


	11. Being a Space Dad is Hard

“It appears something has landed on the planet,” Pidge said, tapping away at her computer. 

Shiro went to look at the screen. “It can’t be the ship, it’s too small,” he said.

“Agreed, it looks more like a small vessel of some sort. Allura, are you sure this planet it uninhabited?” 

“I’m quite sure, but it is odd that there seems to be someone or something aiming vessels at the planet.”

“Maybe we should go check it out. Didn’t our Shiro say they had a run in with Zarkon?” Lance said. “It could be that they followed them here and are waiting for us to attack.” 

If Shiro were able, he’d suggest taking at least one lion and one Paladin (along with Allura since she seemed to be running the show) off the planet just in case something was happening. However, the moment he opened his mouth, Allura would likely do the opposite, if only because she didn’t trust him and didn’t want to be influenced by him. He just prayed someone else would be able to convince her. 

“I’m not sure I like the idea of use getting separated,” she bit her lip. 

“We’re just going to meet Shiro and Keith. It’s not like we have to gear up for the fight.” Lance argued. “Besides, we’re still going to be on the planet. Just let Hunk and I take our lions and go see what’s going on.” 

“If it your ship really is that broken down, it might be a piece of it,” Hunk offered. “I could take a look at it and try to fix it.”

Shiro smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, that would be really nice, actually. Neither Keith nor I are very good at maintenance.” 

“Well I’m pretty good.” 

“You are all missing something very important,” Allura interrupted. “I haven’t agreed to this. I don’t like the idea of us being scattered. If we are attacked by the Galra, it will be much harder to defend against them.” 

“Again,” Lance said. “We’ll stay on the planet and it doesn’t look like the debris is far from us. If it is a Galra attack, we should know sooner rather than later. And you, Shiro, and Pidge can still fly the lions until Hunk and I get back.” 

They all stared at Allura, who sighed and nodded. “Alright, but keep in constant communication and let us know immediately what it is you found.”

Lance and Hunk nodded and sprinted off towards the lion hangar. 

Shiro looked to Allura, who was still worrying away at her lip. “They’ll be fine, Allura. I’m sure they are competent fighters. Besides, Pidge said the thing wasn’t very big, so it’s likely not anything dangerous, right Pidge?”

“Yeah. And if a large fleet were here, we’d probably pick up on it before we’d pick up on a piece of space trash.” 

Allura shook her head, “I just don’t like not having everyone here. It’s harder to protect them.”

“Like Shiro said, we can fight and take care of ourselves. They’ll be fine.” 

“I hope you’re right.” She walked out of the room, biting her thumb and not looking the least bit comforted by the conversation, though, Shiro couldn’t blame her. 

This whole thing screamed that something was going to happen, something bad. He hated not being able to talk freely to Keith, to see what had happened when he wasn’t there and figure out the possible outcomes. Furthermore, his fears were not at all lessened by their brief conversation earlier, if anything, they had increased. He felt his stomach burning and twisting with anxiety, his mind spiraling into a constant stream of worst-case scenarios. He tried to keep himself from panicking, from completely shutting down, but it was getting harder and harder with each moment. 

He took a deep breath. Right now, he couldn’t do anything about Keith and he couldn’t really do anything about Allura. But with Lance and Hunk out of the castle, that was at least two people who were out of the line of fire, should the clone be evil and working with the Galra Empire. 

He looked down at Pidge, who seemed so young, too young to be mixed up in this. They all were, to be honest. He had to figure out a way to keep her safe and away from anything that might happen. So he took another deep breath and sat down next to her. 

“I’m sorry about all of this,” he said. 

Pidge stopped typing on her computer and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You have a father and brother who were taken by the empire with other Shiro, right?”

She nodded. 

“Then I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m sorry that it’s getting more and more complicated with this whole clone business.” He didn’t know if he was helping the situation any, he just had to convince her to not greet other Shiro with them until he determined it was safe. 

“Is it bad that I feel angry towards Shiro, our Shiro?” She went back to staring at her computer, her hands frozen over the keyboard.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if he really is a clone and the Galra empire really wanted him back, does that mean that no matter what happened, my father and brother were going to be taken…” Her voice cracked. “Taken away from me?” She lifted her glasses to scrub at her eyes before pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to Shiro. 

He unfolded it carefully and smiled. It looked like Pidge, but not quiet, next to him was a girl with long hair and a dress. “I’m guessing this is your brother, Matt?”

She nodded. “He and dad were so excited to go on the mission. They were excited to be the first people to find evidence of aliens.” 

He handed the picture back to her. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel angry at other Shiro, even if he couldn’t control the outcome.”

“Mom wasn’t the same after we got the news. And now she’s down there all alone and I’m up here,” she said, tears freely flowing down her cheeks. “I was so obsessed with finding the truth, with finding Matt and dad that I think I forgot all about mom and now I’m realizing that this whole thing might be our Shiro’s fault and I feel guilty because he was tortured by the Galra and you were tortured by them but I can’t help but feel angry at him.” 

Shiro picked up the computer and put it down before wrapping his working arm around Pidge’s shoulders and hugging her to the best of his ability. “Like I said, those emotions are all perfectly valid. We’ll find your family. Keith and I have been all over this universe, we have connections, we can help make sure you all get back home safely.”

“Why would you do something like that? You haven’t even known us a day.” Luckily, she seemed to have stopped crying, which Shiro was thankful for because he did not have a lot of experience with crying people (Keith rarely cried).

“I understand what it’s like to be a victim of Zarkon and I want to be free from this empire as much as the next person. I know what this can do to people and I want to see it end.” He smiled down at her. “I’m may not be an awesome and powerful voltron paladin with my very own colorful sentient robot cat, but I still at least try to help.” 

Pidge sniffed a little and smiled at him. “Thank you, Shiro. And my real name is Katie. Pidge Gunderson was an alias because I wasn’t old enough to join the garrison.”

Shiro snorted. “That’s a punk rock attitude that I can get behind. Although, you look so much like your brother, did no one really figure out it was you?” 

Pidge shrugged. “I guess not. What’s funny is that I actually had several run-ins with Iverson, the guy who helps run the place. He knew I was looking into the Kerberos Mission, though, to be honest, I think he wanted answers just as much as anyone. Maybe that’s why he let me stay. If I was breaking onto Garrison property, he had to do something about it, but if I were already on campus then…”

“He could turn a blind eye to your investigation.” Shiro added.

Pidge shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe when I go back I can ask him.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments. Shiro steeled himself for what he was going to say next. 

“Pidge,”

She turned and looked at him, questioning. 

“Something is going on here, I have a really bad feeling about this whole thing.”

“So you’ve noticed it to.” It wasn’t a question. 

He nodded. “I’m not going to command you or force you to do anything, but I want you to stay away from other Shiro until I figure out what’s going on.”

“You mean hide?” she snapped, her eyes hardening. 

“Look, there was someone else on my ship and I bet you it was a Galra soldier. We don’t know why I was cloned and what the purpose is.”

“How do you know? Shiro wasn’t acting any different than normal,” Pidge said. Maybe this was a mistake, maybe he overestimated how much trust these kids had in him. 

“I know Keith. I’ve raised him for six years and we have almost never been apart. I know when something is wrong and something is very wrong. I disagree with Allura, having you all in one place is dangerous. Again, you don’t have to take my advice, but please, consider just not being there to greet Other Shiro, at least until we know for sure that they aren’t being followed by a fleet.” 

Pidge stared at him, but it wasn’t the glare she had given him earlier, so he tried one more thing. 

“I meant what I said when I said you all were competent fighters. You can’t survive in this empire unless you know how to fight. But you’re also smart and you know if there is a galra brigade on that ship they can easily mow down a larger group of people.” 

There was a bing on Pidge’s computer and she picked it up. “There’s a ship entering the atmosphere. They’re here.” 

Shiro nodded and stood up. He hoped that he was wrong and that everything was fine, especially since he wasn’t sure he could protect anyone with one arm. 

Allura came in. “I think you’re ship in coming. Hopefully we’ll get this resolved quickly.” 

“Allura,” she said, biting her lip and staring down at her computer, “I’m going to stay here a bit longer, I have a code that I’m almost done with and I don’t want to lose my progress.” 

“Okay, good luck.” 

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief as he followed Allura to the open hangar. Now he just had to worry about Allura, Coran, and Keith. Why could his life never be easy? 

“Ah, other Shiro, how are you feeling?” Coran asked with a bright smile on his face. 

“I’ll be happier when we can take this thing off my arm.” He patted the circle that had turned off his arm. “I’m right handed so it’s kind of hard to do things.”

“Ah, don’t you worry, as soon as we sort this out, we’ll have you all put back together.”

Allura stood silently on the side, staring intently at Shiro. He didn’t know how having the other Shiro here would help assure Allura anymore that he was not dangerous. 

The little ship that he and Keith called home came into view, rocking a bit by the winds, creaking and shaking as it drew closer. 

“You were flying and living in that thing?” Allura asked, a look of horror passing over her face.

“When you’re on the run from the empire that runs ninety percent of the universe, you can’t exactly afford to live in luxury.” 

“Now I understand why you weren’t surprised when a piece of the ship entered the atmosphere.” She paused and looked at him. “We’ll have to repair it before you leave. I can’t let you leave if you’re just going to crash because of a gust of wind.” 

This surprised Shiro. Allura had been distant, down-right antagonistic towards him during his stay, but now she was offering to help him. 

“Thank you. Even if we just fix a few things, that’ll go a long way to easing my worries.” He managed to stutter. 

The ship managed to land in the bay, screeching to a halt. Shiro winced and Allura and Coran covered their ears. His landing gear had been a bit shoddy for almost two years now and he had yet to figure out what was wrong with it. 

He held his breath, checking to make sure that Pidge wasn’t in the room with them. Lance and Hunk still weren’t back, their lions missing from the bay. The doors opened, Shiro stepped forward so that he could shield Allura and Coran if needed. 

It happened so fast. One minute he was standing in front of the ship and the next minute he was sailing back and smashing into the wall. His ears ringing and his vision gone from what appeared to be some sort of flash-bang grenade. 

He jumped to his feet, ready to punch. Granted, he wasn’t as good with his left hand, but he could still do some damage, though he wouldn’t be able to get both Allura and Coran out. A figure appeared before him and Shiro swung his fist to connect with the creature. Before his punch could land, a jolt of electricity shot through his body. 

“Ah!” His knees crumpled to the floor and he was left twitching on the cold metal ground. 

“A perfect execution, Commander.” A voice growled, a familiar voice, a voice that Shiro never wanted to hear again. 

He looked up, his vision finally clearing and the ringing in his ears finally dying down. To his left lay Allura, a sentry holding her down, her arms twisted behind her back, her hands grasped in one of the sentry’s hands with the other squeezing her neck, a knee digging into her back. 

To his right, Coran was kneeling, looking pissed but with hands in the air as a Galra with gray streaks in his hair held a gun to his head. 

Above him was Shiro’s worst nightmare. Sendak, this time with a larger robotic hand than before, grinning down at him and showing off all his teeth. Beside him was the clone, gun in his hand looking not at all upset about the way the events went down. 

“I knew it,” Shiro growled. His head was pounding and he realized that he couldn’t see Keith anywhere. Did they kill him? No, he couldn’t think like that. His little brother wasn’t dead. He hadn’t failed. He was still alive. He had to be. He couldn’t be gone. Push away the thoughts, push away the thoughts. 

Sendak knelt in front of him. “If you knew it, then why didn’t you do anything about it? Poor planning on your part.” He clicked disapprovingly. “And thank you, for dismantling the most dangerous part about him. Taking over will be so much easier now that we don’t have to worry about this pesky thing.” 

Sendak kicked Shiro in the ribs, causing him to grunt in pain. “Now then, for your execution.”

“Sir,” the one holding a gun to Coran’s head said. 

“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“Sir.”

“You have embarrassed the Galra Empire for the last time.”

“Sir!” 

“What. Is. It, Commander Thace?” Sendak spun around and snarled. 

“We’re missing a few people.” Thace jerked his head towards Shiro. 

Sendak looked around. “What do you mean?”

Thace sighed and massaged his brow. “The only people who are here are Prisoner 6231, the Princess, and her...what are you, like a butler or something?” 

“I am nothing of the sort!” Coran scoffed. “I was King Alfor’s most trusted advisor.”

“Silence!” Sendak screeched. Shiro was surprised that someone could make him so frustrated. Despite the fact that Thace wasn’t on their side, Shiro could help but respect him just a bit. “What of it, Commander?”

“There are five paladins.”

Sendak and the Clone stared at him. 

Thace groaned. “There are only three people here and we know that the butler--”

Coran made a noise of protest. 

“Is not one of them which means that we are missing three people.”

Sendak looked around, growled and then spun back to Shiro. “Where are they?” 

“I don’t know, I don’t care what they do.” Shiro lied. He kind of knew where Lance and Hunk were, but he wasn’t sure where Pidge was. He hoped she hadn’t been caught up in the explosion. 

Sendak roared, his hand whirling to life. “I know you know so tell me!” 

That hand was going to crush him and kill him. Shiro braced himself for it. He wouldn’t break. 

“Sir, we don’t need to crush what could be our only source of information,” Thace said, sounding almost bored by everything. 

“I don’t need advice from you,” Sendak snarled. 

“Or we could use the boy.” 

Sendak stopped, his arm powering down. 

“That is why we kept him alive, after all.” 

If Shiro didn’t know any better, he could have sworn Thace had emphasized alive, almost as if he was trying to send a message. 

Sendak nodded. “Go get him.” 

The clone looked like he wanted to argue, but thought better of it and walked back into the ship. Shiro steeled himself. He didn’t know if he could hold out if Keith was the one being tortured. 

He looked towards Allura, silently begging for her forgiveness. He knew the Galra would likely kill them all anyways, but if he could help stop Keith’s pain, end it early, he would. If there was no other option, he would always choose Keith. Allura seemed to understand his pain, seemed resign to what was about to happen and nodded. 

The clone ran out of the ship, out of breath. “He’s not there.”

“What?” Sendak said. 

Shiro noticed that Thace hadn’t said anything. 

“He’s not there. The vents were unscrewed and the pod is missing!” The clone jumped out of the ship. 

Sendak roared again and smashed his arm into the clone, sending him sailing across the room, smashing into the wall. 

“Where is he?” 

“How should I know? He was there when we landed, right?” Thace said. 

“Well who was supposed to go check on him.” 

They both looked at the clone who was struggling to get to his feet. “You idiot.” Sendak snarled. “You better hope that half-breed comes back for this pathetic human or I will have Haggar dissasemble you piece by piece while you are alive and awake.” 

He turned to the sentries that remained standing, ready for orders. “Half of you take these prisoners to a cell and make sure they do not leave. The other half, come with me. We need to find the paladins.” 

Shiro was yanked to his feet and dragged through the hallways. He felt a large weight lifted from his shoulders. Keith had gotten out, and he bet that the debris they had seen earlier was him, which meant that he would run into Hunk and Lance. Now, he only hoped Keith would follow the rules and leave him and get to safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quality Shiro and Pidge time for y'all as well as Space Dad being the best Space Dad he can be! Next time, Keith finally meets Lance and Hunk...it goes about as well as you'd expect.


	12. Punches and Kicks do not make Good First Impressions

“What do you think is going to happen when our Shiro gets here?” Hunk asked as the two lions landed in a clearing not far from the debris. 

Lance shrugged. “I don’t know. I think we really need to figure out what’s going on, though. I don’t like not knowing what the galra are up to.” 

Hunk made a face and for a moment, Lance was worried he was about to be sick. “Everytime I think it can’t get any worse, it gets worse. How is that even possible?” 

They exited their lions and started going towards the piece of space debris. 

“Hey, what do you think of other Shiro?” Hunk asked, carefully stepping over some bug-like creatures. 

Now that was a hard question to answer. On one hand, he seemed so much nicer, so much kinder than the Shiro Lance had known. But he didn’t know if that was because he built him up in his head so much and now he was just disappointed. 

“I guess it’s hard to tell, since we don’t really know much about him. He seems nice, though.” 

“Yeah, much nicer than our Shiro. He hasn’t yelled at me once. I think it took our Shiro like ten minutes to snap at me.”

“He was going through a lot,” Lance pointed out. His hand still hurt from where he had punched the guard. Who knew actually punching someone hurt so much?

“Yeah, so is this Shiro,” Hunk argued. “I mean, other than when we first got him on the shuttle, he hasn’t been mean to us, and he has every right to be. He’s in a new place and his brother isn’t anywhere near him with some stranger, he should be stressing out right now, but he’s not.”

“Or he’s just not showing it.” Lance muttered, but he couldn’t help but agree with Hunk. Even if Shiro was stressing out, he was hiding it so as to make them more comfortable, so as to make them feel safer with him around. He didn’t know if their Shiro was even capable of such a thing. 

Thunk.

They froze, upon hearing what sounded like something hitting metal. 

“Good, you heard that too,” Hunk said, cowering slightly behind Lance.

Thunk.

“Did Pidge say if she saw anything alive in the piece of space trash that crashed?”

“No, I don’t think so. But what could possibly survive that crash?”

They looked at each other and then crept closer to where the crash sight was. 

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. 

They peered over the pile of dirt to see what looked like an escape pod from an old sci-fi movie.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk! 

The door flew open, revealing a worn boot, probably the source of the noise. Lance and Hunk stayed back, curious but cautious. There was something fishy going on with this whole thing and this could be another trick the Galra were trying to pull to kill them. 

A figure stumbled out of the pod, a string of curses falling from his lips. 

“I am going to kill that fucking space cat,” he spat, in one hand was a purple knife, the other was wiping his face. “What the fuck was he playing at?”

Lance recognized that awful hair, in fact, the hair was the first thing he had noticed upon seeing other Shiro’s “brother” on the screen. 

“Keith?” Hunk asked. 

The guy froze and Lance remembered Shiro saying something about how he was half-Galra. And he knew from experience that the Galra had very good hearing. Keith turned, his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched, clearly ready for a fight. Lance jumped out from behind the pile of dirt with his hands held up, hoping to diffuse the situation. 

Now, he did think of himself as a pretty capable fighter. He had won a few battles fighting freaking eight-foot-tall muscle space cats, after all. And it was par for the course that all cadets receive combat training, which he did pretty well on. But he had seen some of the videos of Keith fighting and while he certainly wasn’t as big as him (or as tall, thank God, Lance did not want to be the shortest guy in the group), he had a sort of...feral fighting style that was a lot power packed into each punch. Lance wasn’t stupid, he knew this guy could probably take him down in an instant. 

“Who are you?” He growled. 

Wow, that sure did sound a lot like a Galra. Of course, if this all went well, maybe Lance could answer one of his most pressing questions; did the Galra purr?  
“Hey, so, we’re the Paladin’s of Voltron--”

“Well, two of them anyways, and you’re Keith, right? Shiro’s brother,” Hunk said, finally emerging from behind the pile of dirt. 

Keith looked back and forth between the two of them, sizing them up. It then occurred to Lance, a bit too late as Keith had already sucker punched him and kicked Hunk in the head, that he was going to fight them. 

“Ow! What is your problem?” Lance shouted, successfully dodging another swing, luckily, the knife hadn’t been used yet. 

“We’re really not here to hurt you, we’re here to help!” Hunk said, though he was shrinking away to the sidelines. Lance managed to activate his shield as Keith smashed a foot where his head would have been. 

“Why should I believe you. Your leader handed us over to the galra.” Keith spat, his eyes seemed to be turning yellow, his teeth elongating, and his skin took on a purple tinge. Or maybe it was just Lance’s eyes playing tricks on him. 

“What do you mean? We’re fighting against the Galra.” He managed to roll out of the way. Good God could this guy fight, they had to figure out a way to subdue him and figure out what he was talking about. 

Just as Keith was about to punch Lance again. Hunk roared and managed to fling himself onto him, pinning him into the mud. “We’re not going to hurt you or other Shiro, so just calm down,” he said. He looked surprisingly badass and collected. 

Keith was breathing heavily in the dirt, but didn’t seem to be struggling against him at all. Lance breathed a sigh of relief and rested up against the tree.   
“What do you mean our leader handed you over to the Galra?” he asked. 

Keith stared at him for a moment, unblinking as if trying to pierce straight into his soul. “Your Shiro, the other Shiro, brought me to the Vlium system where we met up with General Sendak, one of Zarkon’s top military leaders and are going to kill Shiro if I don’t figure out a way to stop them.” 

Lance blanched. He knew something was wrong. He knew something was up. Why didn’t he say anything? They were heading to the palace right now where Pidge and Allura and Coran were. 

“Please get off of me, I think they broke, or at least fractured, a few of my ribs.” 

“Oh, sorry, you were just trying to kill us so I thought…” Hunk laughed and got off of Keith, who sat up, definitely favoring his right side. 

Lance also noticed some bruising around his neck and wrist as well as bloodied fingernails. They were the type of bruises that were so light, they might be mistaken for a shadow, especially in the grainy video he had seen earlier. 

“Dude, what happened to your neck?” Hunk asked. He reached out to touch Keith but then seemed to think better of it and dropped his hand. 

Keith touched the front and shrugged. “When I suspected something was wrong, your Shiro choked me until I passed out so I wouldn’t fight him.”

“And the ribs?” Lance was almost afraid to ask. He didn’t do very well with the idea of tortue. Then again, who did? And from what he had heard from Shiro (who may or may not be evil) the Galra were very fond of physical harm. 

“Sendak crushed me when I tried to take them out. It hasn’t been bothering me, but I think during the fight I finally started shifting things out of place.” 

Lance stood up, glad to have finally calmed everything down but desperate to make sure everyone was alright. “We need to get back to the castle. If what you say is true they’ll be sitting ducks.”

“What?” 

Lance glared at him but then remembered that he never lived on Earth so wasn’t used to their idioms. “They’ll be easy to pick off. We have to go.” 

“Do you know anything else about them?” Hunk asked. “Do they have any more troops or anything.” 

“There’s Sendak, who’s bloodthirsty and ruthless. Your Shiro, who seems to lack any sort of empathy. And then there’s Thace, who might be on our side.”

“Might be?”

“He convinced Sendak not to murder me after the call with Shiro and was the one that put me in the escape pod, though he could have done so without knocking me out. There’s also a few sentries, but I don’t know how many.” 

“We’ll try and warn Allura so she can put up shields or something. Hopefully it’ll be a quick fight, if that really is all and there are no reinforcements,” Lance said.

“Oh, we haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Hunk, and this is Lance.” He smiled brightly. Despite his almost constant state of anxiety, Hunk was actually pretty good at cheering people up and making a situation seem less dire. 

Keith stared at him. “What kind of a name is that?” 

Hunk’s smile dropped. “Well it’s--”

“Not your name, his name.” He jerked his head towards Lance, who glared back at him. “Seriously, Lance. That’s such a weird name.”

“Not as weird as that stupid mullet on your head,” Lance snapped back. 

Keith stared at him. “What’s a mullet. Some kind of animal?”

“On your head, it might as well be,” he muttered. 

“I can get rid of my hair. You can’t get rid of your name.” 

“All right, that’s enough, guys. We need to focus on the mission. Let’s get back to the lions and contact the castle as soon as possible,” Hunk said. 

Keith and Lance glared at each other, but no longer teased each other. Who did this guy think he was? Lance did not like that whole ‘I’m better and cooler than everyone’ attitude that he was spouting (even if he did manage to best Lance in combat despite only having a tiny knife and fighting with possible broken ribs). 

The lions came into view and Keith gasped. 

“Wow, I had no idea they looked like actual lions,” he said, almost in awe. 

“What did you think we meant when we said lions?” 

He shrugged. “I don’t know. People name their ships weird things all the time. I once ran into a guy who named his ship The Dancing Balmera.” He started to laugh. 

Hunk and Lance blinked at him, unsure of what the heck a Balmera was or why it was so funny. 

“Guys! Is anyone there?”

Lance looked at Hunk, who was also hearing Pidge’s frantic voice over their comms. 

“Yeah, we’re here, what’s wrong?” he asked. 

“What is it? What’s going on?” Keith hissed. 

“It’s Pidge,” Hunk explained. 

“What’s a Pidge?” 

“Shiro was right, our Shiro was plotting something this whole time. They’ve captured them… I don’t know what to do.” Pidge rambled, her voice getting higher and her pace quickening as she continued. 

Lance recognized the signs of a panic attack and needed to talk her down ASAP so they could get more information. 

“Pidge, I need you to breath for me. What are five things that you see?”

“What?”

“Just do it so we can figure something out.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m in my lion. I see all the buttons in front of me. Um, the edges of my chair. I see my hands. Does that count?” 

“Yeah, whatever you see.” 

“Okay, out the window I see about fourteen or like twenty sentries and oh, God, Lance, they just blew up the hangar and they tried to fight back but they were all overpowered.” 

Keith and Hunk both looked very distressed by the news, with Keith paling as she spoke and Hunk’s eyes widening. 

“What happened? How did you escape?” he demanded. 

Lance wanted to smack him for possibly triggering Pidge into a deeper spiral, but it was something they needed to know. There was just a better way he could have phrased that. 

“Shiro, your Shiro, came and talked to me and convinced me to hide out somewhere, just in case. He knew something was going to happen but didn’t manage to convince Allura and Coran to be cautious. I hid out in my Lion, so that I could communicate with you guys.”

“Where are they now?” Hunk asked. “Are they all still alive?” 

“Yeah, yeah they are. One of the Galra pointed out that we weren’t here, and Keith wasn’t in the ship so they wanted to keep them alive to convince us to go get them.” 

“That must have been Thace.” Keith looked at Hunk and Lance. “He’s continually talked Sendak out of murdering or hurting me this entire time and he knew for a fact that I wasn’t on the ship since he’s the one that kicked me off of it. If we have any way of getting Shiro and your friends out of this alive, we’re going to need his help.”

“Are you sure we can trust him, dude?” Hunk said. “No offense, but he is working for Zarkon’s empire. This could all be part of some master plan.”

Keith shook his head. “There are rumors of underground resistance groups, some of them being Galra. He might be a spy, or someone who just isn’t sympathetic to the empire and is trying to sabotage it from the inside. You guys don’t get it because you didn’t grow up in this environment, but from birth Galra are brainwashed and basically tortured into accepting Zarkon as the one true leader of the universe.” 

“I don’t know if we can take that chance, though.” Lance did admit, it was a good idea to gather up as much support as possible, but still, putting their fate in the hands of someone who was possibly their enemy didn’t sit well with them. “Shiro’s like your brother, right?”

He nodded. 

“Would you really trust this guy to keep him alive?”

“No, I guess not. We have to get in there, though. The longer we sit out here, the more likely someone is to get hurt. Shiro’s already been through enough, I refuse to put him through any more.”

“Yeah, but how are you guys going to get back here? They’ll see the lions coming from a mile away and they have access to all of the Castle’s defenses,” Pidge said. 

Lance was glad she was calming down. They needed everyone if they were going to pull this off. 

“We can run there. It’s not that far away.” He suggested. 

“Then how are we going to get inside?” 

“Is there some sort of service entrance?” Keith asked. 

“What? Like where the maids would go?” Lance didn’t know if the Alteans even had such a thing as a servant entrance. They seemed pretty egalitarian in that respect. 

“Yeah, you said it was a castle. There has to be some way to get workers, food, or garbage out besides the front door. They wouldn’t just want that stuff parading through the palace.”

“Hold up, let me see. I think I can access a map to this place.” Pidge was silent for a few moments. “Got it! There is a small service entrance, or at least a small entrance that is around the back of the castle. Because I’m in here, I can hack into the defenses and create a hole just small enough for you guys to slip in, but you’re going to have to be quick.” 

“Did you get a good look at their numbers? Do we know what we’re up against?” Lance asked.

“They seem to have a fleet of about forty to fifty sentries. Then there is Evil Shiro--” 

“Evil Shiro?”

“Well I’m not calling him our Shiro, he tried to blow up Allura and Coran. Sendak and then the one Keith called Thace.”

“If I’m right about Thace, then Evil Shiro and Sendak are going to be our biggest worries, especially Sendak. He is ruthless and bloodthirsty. With Evil Shiro, the danger really comes from not knowing what he is or isn’t capable of.”

Lance’s shoulders dropped. This day was just getting worse and worse. They were just supposed to go on a fun outing to the space mall! “Was Shiro really that bad? Did he seem brainwashed or anything? Maybe he isn’t doing this willingly.” He was desperate to cling onto some last bit of hope. 

Pidge sighed. “I don’t think so, Lance. I didn’t get a good look at him but he just sounded so--”

“Hateful?” Keith supplied. “Yeah, I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, but the time I did spend with him was awful. I don’t think he’s brainwashed.” Then, almost as if he was forcing himself, “Sorry, I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear.” 

He shook his head. “No, we need to know so we know what we’re up against. We’ll get to the palace as soon as we can and message Pidge to put in the hole.” 

“Once inside, we’ll meet up and take out Sendak definitely, before he can contact reinforcements,” Hunk said. 

“Evil Shiro should be our next target and we should try to keep Thace awake, just so that we can question him. If he has ties to a resistance, he’ll likely want to let us know. I know he has a knife similar to my mother’s. And I know that she was part of some resistance, hopefully we can figure it out for sure.” Keith said. 

“Right, after we get those three taken out, we can let the others go and hopefully Allura will kiss me.”

“She’s not going to kiss you, dude.”

“A guy can dream, can’t he?”

“I’ll see if I can draft some sort of virus to take out the sentries so we won’t have to deal with them. They might share a network so spreading a virus should be relatively easy.”

“We should also stay together once inside the Castle.” Keith added. “You guys know the layout and I know how to fight against Galra and Sentries in close hand-to-hand combat. We can do this.”

Lance didn’t know if he was saying it to comfort them, or himself, but he was determined and Lance could get behind that. 

“Alright, then, let’s move out.” 

And with that, they took off through the trees confident but nervous at the same time. This would be one of the first battles with an uncertain outcome. They were seperated, unable to access their lions and not knowing who was on their side and who wasn’t. Keith could be lying. Evil Shiro could be brainwashed. There could be an entire resistance group of Galra that had infiltrated Zarkon’s army. It was a lot of unknowns and it made Lance feel much more useless than before. But he would fight through it, and he would succeed. They had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm posting three chapters quickly because I kind of feel bad for not updating for like, five months. Anyways, Keith does not know how to properly greet someone and Lance could stop picking on his hair so much. Next time, the infiltration (and Thace's growing collection of grey hairs).


	13. Thace's Hair is Turning Grey (Faster and Faster When Sendak's Around)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for torture. It doesn't get graphic but it's there.

Thace had never liked being a soldier in the Empire. As the son of a prominent family (his father was a well-respected general, his mother was the owner of a prominent mining operation, and his brother was one of the youngest pilots to ever be put in charge of a large-scale, planetary wide, attack mission) it was expected that he would be a soldier as well. And he was. 

He was a dutiful soldier that aced his physical and mental exams, was the top of his class in every year, and had a keen mind for tactics and strategy that made him a very important piece in the Empire’s domination. 

Still, he hated every minute of it. There was an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that accompanied every decision, every mission. Once, towards the beginning of his career, he had almost advised a decision that would have led to certain destruction of the Empire’s forces only to fearfully back out at the last second and make a legitimate suggestion. He knew what Zarkon and Haggar were doing was wrong. He knew that this monster had to be destroyed before it consumed everything. But he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

The Empire had bred loyalty in some and cowardice in others. Thace was unlucky enough to end up with the cowardice. He envied his brother’s easy life, making decisions without question while he toiled away with more and more guilt crushing him with each meeting, with each promotion. Still, he did nothing to stop it and simply hoped that a stray bullet would end it all for him. 

Then he was requested to help Haggar with her “experiments”. He’s still not sure why he was offered the job or why he took it, but he did. He then met Ulaz, who had bitten off the previous handler’s fingers and who took none of Thace’s shit. Seeing this half-galra captured and experimented on to create a perfect soldier fight back despite the pain had forced Thace into a decision. 

Not long after, he found the Blades. Not long after that, he was back in the Empire making tactical decisions and discussing strategy, but this time it was different. He learned how to subtly sabotage their efforts. He learned what information was useful and what was garbage. He was learning, and improving. And when Voltron first appeared, Thace was filled with hope that they would finally win this thing. 

Then fucking Sendak was put in fucking charge of the fucking clone and the Blades had lost Shiro almost five rotations ago with no ability to find where he fucking went and only popped up occasionally on the Empire’s radar.

(“Why didn’t you put a tracker on the ship?” Thace groaned in Laz’s hospital room.  
“Like I had time for that,” he scoffed. Thace’s gray hair started to come in not long after). 

The stress was getting to Thace. He could already feel the ulcers in his stomach and wondered if he should just start eating chalk to help sooth them. 

Kolivan thought that because Thace had such an extensive working knowledge of the politics thanks to him growing up in the system, he would be the perfect person to help figure out what the heck the Empire was doing with the clone. It would have been easier if Sendak wasn’t such a bloodthirsty monster who seemed hell bent on not taking any of his suggestions seriously.

“I’m going to go in there and cut off his other arm, just to watch him scream.” Sendak grinned, showing several of his sharp teeth. Fun fact, his teeth didn’t used to be that sharp but he was jealous of Ulaz (though he would never admit it) and had them augmented to look like that.

“We don’t have a medical staff on board and he could die from blood loss. Or shock. Or really anything that comes with taking off a limb. Did you not pay attention in school?” Thace rubbed his head and tried to calm himself. His patience was wearing thin and he could not risk Sendak killing him, thus getting rid of any protection the Paladins had. 

Sendak growled. “I don’t have to take orders from you.” 

“I am the best when it comes to strategy, why wouldn’t you listen to me?” Oops, probably should have kept his mouth shut. Ulaz was lucky enough to get sent to a freaking Balmera after cursing out his superior. Thace was going to end up a bloody smear on the wall. 

Sure enough, the hand shot out and smashed him against the door. “I am your commanding officer, you will show me some respect.” 

Thace nodded. “Sorry. I’m just trying to make sure things don’t go sour. Haggar didn’t say if she wanted to original dead or not.” 

“Things have already gone sour, Commander. If we don’t find those children soon, I will skin you and wear you around my waist. Figure out a way to find them.” The hand released and Thace dropped to the floor, rubbing a particularly bruised spot. 

How on was he going to do this without getting anyone killed? “Let’s just talk to him first and see what his weaknesses are.”

“His weakness is the half-breed, which managed to escape from under our noses.” Sendak snapped, coming to a halt in front of the door which held the three prisoners. 

“He has others. We just have to find them.” 

Sendak stared at Thace. Thace stared back, not sure if he was being studied or if Sendak was just so stupid that he was unable to comprehend what Thace had said. 

The problem with Sendak is that he represented a third group of people the Empire had bred: fanatics. Most Galra were loyal and would do the government’s bidding, but only to the point where they were ordered to do so. Fanatics like Sendak went above and beyond. If he was told to secure a planet for resources, he would secure the planet and then have all of the parents choose which of their offspring would be murdered, and he would then murder all of the children if the parents refused to choose. Most soldiers didn’t scare Thace. He knew that once Zarkon and Haggar fell, they would be lost and unable to adapt. Sendak was different. Sendak would continue to lead the fight for total conquest and he would likely succeed given his experience as a general. 

Finally, he broke and turned away, a sign of submission that would hopefully appease this psychopath.

Sendak said nothing and opened the door. 

Shiro had his left arm chained above him, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side, no doubt painfully pulling on the stump it was connected to. The Princess and her advisor were also chained with their hands over their head, all far enough apart so that they couldn’t touch each other. 

For a brief moment, Thace considered knocking Sendak out now, letting the three of them go, and then going to find the clone and take out the sentries. He dismissed the thought. If he didn’t execute it perfectly, it could mean that he would die. He didn’t know what other less obvious augmentations Sendak had done and he didn’t want to risk someone who couldn’t be taken out by a blow to the back of the head or a shot of tranquilizers. 

“Thank you, Butler, for tipping the odds in our favor.” Sendak did a dramatic bow at the advisor, who looked outraged at the suggestion. 

“What have I done to help you, you snake.” His eyes were narrowed and even though he looked like an older man who was not a fighter, Thace had no doubt that he could do some damage if he really wanted to. 

Sendak grinned and before Thace knew what was happened, swung his foot out and kicked Shiro’s prosthetic. The metal jerked across his body, causing him to twist in the cuffs painfully and cry out. 

“You turned off his weapon. You should see it in action, though. It certainly is a dangerous piece of machinery,” he said. “Too bad you left, though. Haggar could have given you the latest model. It really is much better than that piece of junk that traitor designed.” 

Thace had to suppress a grin. When Ulaz was discovered to be a traitor, they tried to find the schematics to the prosthetic only to discover he had destroyed everything on the subject.

“Oh yeah,” Shiro gasped, sitting up straight and using his stump to drag the arm back into his lap. 

Thace winced at the movement. 

“Can your ‘latest model’ do this?” 

Thace and Sendak stared at him, and he wondered if Shiro had been hit in the head one too many times. 

“My hand. Look at my hand.” 

They looked down at the prosthetic, which was still lying there like a lump.

“No, the real one. Look up, there you go.” 

They cocked their head to the side. It appeared that Shiro had his middle finger up with the rest pressed down. 

Sendak turned to him. “What is this? Why would I be jealous of that?” 

“I have no idea. How hard did he hit his head?”

Shiro groaned. “No, it’s an Earth insult. You show it to mean like fuck you and stuff, you know what, just forget it, moment’s ruined.”

Everyone stared at him for a moment longer. Shiro looked at Allura and Coran. “You live on a ship with a bunch of Earth teenagers. How have you not come across this before?” 

“I don’t know, but they seemed to have taken a liking to the word Quiznak,” Coran said, looking a little proud. “Though, they usually don’t use it correctly.” 

Sendak slammed his hand into the wall, causing it to splinter and crack. “Enough!” 

Everyone stopped talking and looked at him. Thace took a deep breath and started making a plan in case things started to spiral out of control. He didn’t want anyone to be tortured, but a little torture was better than death. 

“I am getting low on patience so tell me where those children are and I might be kind enough to not kill any of them.” 

“I don’t know,” Shiro said. “We don’t know. This place is huge--Ah!”

Before Thace could stop him, Sendak had taken the electric rod from one of the sentries and jammed it into Shiro’s side. 

“What are you doing?” he asked as Sendak pulled the rod away. 

“Getting results without killing him,” Sendak growled. He turned to Allura. 

“Would you really sit here and let an innocent man be tortured?”

Before she could respond he jammed the rod back into Shiro, who was no doubt feeling the effects worse because of the metal attached to him.

“Torture doesn’t yield information,” Thace shouted, panicking and desperate to figure out a way to keep Sendak from taking things to far. “All you’ll hear is what you want to hear, even if it’s not truthful.”

He pulled the rod back and turned to Thace. “Her compassion will compel her to tell the truth.”

“Allura,” Shiro coughed, “Don’t do it. If he finds them, he’ll just torture them too. I’m only one person, they’re more important.” 

He could see burns appearing where the flesh and metal met, and assumed there were more from where the rod had come in contact with the skin. 

“We’ll see about that.” Sendak jammed the rod back into Shiro’s stomach. He was trying hard not to scream, Thace could tell, but the longer he was tortured, the more he cried out.

“Stop, we really don’t know!” the advisor yelled. “Stop torturing him, use me instead!” 

Sendak pulled the rod back and turned to the advisor. “I can’t. I know what he can take. I don’t know what you can take. Isn’t that right, Shiro? Perhaps I should pull out some of my old favorites. I suggested cutting off your other arm, but Thace suggested I not.” 

“You’re the one who cut off my arm?” he panted, hanging limply from the chains but still awake and aware. Thace had to give him credit. 

Still, things were spinning out of control fast and if he didn’t get Sendak to stop, he might lose everyone here. 

“We should do a scan of the planet. The boy couldn’t have gone far, not with anything from that piece of junk anyways. And the lions likely have some way of being traced by the castle.” He blurted out. 

Sendak paused his torture and looked thoughtful. “Once we have corrupted the crystals completely, we’ll have full access to the castle and it’s systems. That’s not a bad idea, Commander. And with the Clone being already linked to the Black Lion, he’ll likely be able to understand more about the systems.”

Thace didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Sendak got off on torturing people and just because they had a plan now, didn’t mean they weren’t in danger anymore. Fuck Thace needed a vacation, and a new job. Who was in charge of making the Blade’s uniforms, Pali? Yeah, maybe he could be a seamstress with Pali. That seemed much less stressful and he might actually get some sleep (and get to see Ulaz some more). 

Then, Sendak started sniffing the air. "I smell something." 

Thace sniffed as well. It smelled...human? He noticed Shiro, Allura, and the Advisor tense. Now that he thought about it, the Blue and Yellow Lion were both missing, likely going to see Keith's landing site, which left the Green Paladin somewhere in this castle. From images of them, he knew they were small. Small enough to fit in the vents. They were hiding, out of the way to gather intel. 

Luckily, Sendak seemed done with torture and the smell for now and walked out the door. “I would think very carefully over your next moves. I might require some information or cooperation from you and I would hate for more bits and pieces of Takeshi Shirogane to come off by accident.”

The door hissed closed. Thace hoped that wherever the children were, they would stay put long enough for him to figure out what to do next. He hated himself for not being more prepared, but this is the situation he was in, so he had to deal with it. With Sendak and the Clone distracted by the crystals, that should provide him with enough time to get Shiro and the others out of the cell. Once that was done, all they had to do was defeat Sendak and the Clone (the sentries would be little issue) and then this whole thing could be over and done with. 

He heard some tapping above them in the vents. He paused and looked up, wondering if they were in there. 

“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to do your job?” Sendak snarled. 

“Sorry, sir. I’m just thinking through plans,” he said, following after Sendak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thace perspective! I was going to put in the next part but this chapter is long so I split it up. Also, I'm planning on writing a story set in this universe about Thace and Ulaz's relationship since they were taken from us too soon and deserve a happy ending.


	14. Team Work makes the Dream Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for violence.

Pidge finally uncovered her ears and stretched her legs out, taking deep breaths. Listening to Shiro’s screams had been...she didn’t want to use the word ‘torture’ because it felt like it was belittling what Shiro had gone through, but the word did fit. She wanted to burst into the room and heroically save her friends, but Thace and Sendak were both huge, towering over Shiro (who towered over her) and were built like tanks. Not only that, but Keith had described just how awful Sendak was, and she didn’t want to risk becoming a hostage, not when Shiro and Allura and Coran had all kept strong to protect them. 

Then, Sendak started sniffing the air and mentioned something about the smell. 

Pidge’s heart rate spiked and she started crawling away. She couldn’t risk being caught, not when Lance, Hunk, and Keith were so close. Plus, she had to tell them about the crystals. If they managed to corrupt them, there was no telling what damage could be done to the Castle or the Lions.

She crawled through the vents, wincing at every creak and groan they made, worried that at any moment, she would crash into the enemy and be mowed down. Finally, she made it to the service door and tapped her fingers nervously. 

“Guys, are you almost here?” she asked. Luckily, it didn’t seem as though Sendak had thought to send any sentries down here, though that could change at a moment’s notice. 

“Yeah, we’re almost here,” Lance said. “We’re coming up on the castle now.” 

Pidge nodded and typed some commands into her computer. “Okay, you should be clear. They shouldn’t see you on the scanner.” 

“Great. Any word on what’s going on the inside?” Hunk asked. 

“Yeah, they mentioned something about corrupting the crystals.”

“We have to stop them!” Lance said. “Those crystals are what makes the castle run, if they manage to corrupt them--”

“Then they’ll have complete control over the castle,” Keith said. 

“And the lions,” Hunk added. 

“That seems to be Zarkon’s overall plan. He wants the Lions, he wants Voltron for himself.” Lance sighed. “Should we try and get Allura, Shiro and Coran first?” 

They were all silent for a moment before Keith spoke, almost hesitantly. “I think we should get the crystals first.”

“How can you say that? You’re abandoning Shiro!” Lance cried. 

Pidge could practically picture the wince. 

“No, I’m not. Right now Sendak is focused on finding us and corrupting the crystals. He’s keeping Shiro and the others alive until he can contact the main fleet and get his next set of instructions. Am I right, Pidge?” 

Pidge bit her lip. “Yeah, that’s what it sounds like is going on.” 

“I am not going to abandon Shiro, but if Sendak gets control of the most powerful weapon in the universe, he’ll be unstoppable and will kill us. I’m choosing-I’m choosing to trust Thace, to trust that he can keep Shiro and the others alive until we can get to him.” 

They were all silent. Pidge squeezed her eyes shut. 

She wanted to run and get her friends out of the prison, to get them away from harm. Shiro had risked his life to defend them, to save them despite not knowing anything about them. 

“Besides, if Sendak manages to contact the main fleet they’ll be here in a matter of ticks and once they’re here, we won’t be able to stop them and they’ll take Shiro.” Keith took a deep and shuddery breath and Pidge could just hear the ‘away from me’ implied in his voice. 

“I don’t want to abandon them, but Keith is right,” Hunk said. “Right now we’re at an advantage with only three Galra and a handful of sentries. The longer Sendak has access to the castle, the more damage he can do.” 

Lance groaned. “I guess, but how do we know he’s not going to lose his marbles and kill everyone?” 

“Thace has him preoccupied with the crystals,” Pidge said, getting back to work on opening the door. “He thinks that he can use the castle to get in contact with the Blue and Yellow Lion as well as scan for Keith and I, which he can...technically.” 

“But if we sabotage him and the crystals first, he won’t be able to have control of the lions or contact the main fleet.” Lance sounded like he was warming up to the plan. 

Pidge wanted desperately to tell them about what she had overheard, about Shiro’s torture, but she knew the moment she spilled to them, they would abandon their plan and go and save Shiro and the others. They couldn’t risk that. They couldn’t risk there being more forces in the area, not when they weren’t even sure who was the true Black Paladin. 

“Alright, Pidge, we’re here,” Hunk said. 

“Great, give me a minute.” She typed a few more lines of code on the computer before the small service door slid open. 

In stumbled Lance, Hunk, and Keith, who all looked terrible. They were all covered in mud and various bruises, though Keith looked to be the worse off with a smattering of bruises around his neck and face, with his fingers clearly bleeding and a few nails missing. 

“What happened?” She asked. How had they not seen Keith’s condition in the video? She knew the image wasn’t that clear, with plenty of grain and static distorting it, but still, looking at him now she didn’t know why they didn’t recognize that something was wrong. 

“We got into a bit of a fight, no worries though,” Hunk said. “I think we trust each other now.” 

“Trust is earned, not given,” Keith said, crossing his arms and staring at his feet. 

Pidge waved away the phrase, they had more important things to do. “We have to work fast. According to my data, Sendak’s about sixty percent done with the corruption. He’ll be able to contact the fleet any minute.” 

They nodded and took off down the halls. 

“Have you guys fought Sentries before?” Keith asked as they skidded around the corner. There didn’t seem to be any on their way down, but Pidge was sure that would change soon.

“Yeah, we’ve fought a few.” Lance’s bayard had transformed into a gun. 

Pidge followed suit and wondered if Keith was just planning on smashing his way through with his fists. She would tell him to stand back, but he didn’t seem like the kind of person to take kindly to suggestions like that. 

“Good, their weakest point is an area just below the neck where the charging port is. If you hit that, you can usually stun them for a few seconds.”

They rounded another corner and saw some sentries. Before Pidge could launch her bayard Keith had propelled himself forward, stabbing a knife into the head of one of the Sentries and kicking the other one just below the neck, causing it to freeze. Lance quickly shot a few shots at some of the remaining ones and Hunk managed to smash the one Keith had stunned. 

Pidge rolled forward and shot her bayard out, wrapping the electric cord around a pair that were coming around the corner and shocking them until they fell dead. Despite Keith not knowing them and the stress of the situation, they worked surprisingly well as a team, with each picking up on the other’s weakness and compensating for it. 

“We’re almost there,” Pidge said, bringing up the map to check they were still on the right path. The Castle had a lot of twists and turns so it was easy to get lost. 

“Great. When we get there we’ll need to take out the sentries,” Lance said. “Then Hunk and Pidge, you guys stay behind and stop the crystals from corrupting anymore. Keith and I will get Shiro, Allura, and Coran.”

“Are they going to be able to fight?” Keith asked.

“I think so. You’ll have to reactivate Shiro’s arm, though. Allura is pretty terrifying, and while I haven’t actually seen Coran fight, he definitely seems like he can.” Pidge answered. 

Another round of sentries. Hunk used his shield as a springboard to launch Keith at them, smashing his feet into their heads and throwing his knife at another, embedding it in its chest. 

Lance fired off a few more rounds and Pidge rolled to the back to take out a few that were coming up from behind. 

She was feeling nervous, this was almost too easy. Still, she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and was glad this whole thing was almost over. 

They rounded the next corner and Lance let out a whoop. They could see the crystal room in front of them. Sure there were a few sentries milling about and there appeared to be some heavy machinery attached to the crystals, turning them an ugly purple color, but it was almost over. This whole ordeal was finally almost over. 

A large metal hand smashed Lance against the wall, tearing out some of the tubes that were connected to the crystals.

“Lance!” Pidge cried. Her brain hadn’t yet caught up to what had happened. 

The lights flickered and suddenly, Pidge’s feet left the ground and she and Keith were rolling, slamming into the wall. 

She heard a laugh and looked up, realizing that Lance was unconscious, crushed beneath the giant metal hand of Sendak, who was grinning, showing off his sharp teeth that would no doubt rip Pidge to pieces should he so desire (and she had no doubt that he desired it very much). 

“Damn, I hate how fast you are on your feet,” Shiro said, his Galra arm glowing and transformed into a blade. 

Pidge’s stomach sank as she realized that her head would have come off her shoulders had Keith not reacted when he did. 

“Fuck you,” he spat. 

Sendak chuckled and ground his arm into Lance’s body even more, making a horrible crunching sound. “I knew I could draw you all out. Now then, time for your execution for crimes against Emperor Zarkon’s great empire.” 

Evil Shiro’s eyes were yellow now, and he had a maniac grin on his face. He raised his sword and charged towards them.

Pidge tried to grab her bayard to stun him, only to realize it had been knocked out of her hand. Keith leapt to his feet, knife at the ready. Hunk let out a roar and smashed himself into Evil Shiro’s side, knocking them both into the crystals. 

“Lance! Get Lance!” he cried as he managed to dodge a swing of Shiro’s arm. 

Keith hesitated but Pidge knew they had to act fast. There was no more time for hesitation. She rolled to her feet and dashed to her bayard. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Sendak growled, releasing his arm from Lance and going to aim for her. 

“Now, Keith!”

Thankfully, he reacted fast and while she dove for Lance, Keith leapt at the arm, sliding under it and managing to cut it off from the wire (what the hell was that thing made from? She had never seen a blade cut like that.).

She managed to grab Lance and drag him to the side, out of the way so they could hopefully defeat Hunk and evil Shiro. 

Hunk cried out and was thrown across the room, Evil Shiro panting heavily with blood streaming from his forehead. 

He transformed his arm once again and ran to Hunk. Keith jumped in front of him, driving an elbow into his gut and his foot into his shin. Evil Shiro let out an oomph but recovered quickly and started slashing at Keith. Despite the fact that Keith had a knife and Evil Shiro had an arm sword, he was still holding up pretty well, that is until Evil Shiro managed to grab his hand and lift him off the ground. 

“You can’t hurt me. I know you can’t,” Evil Shiro said, grinning like a maniac, his hair wild and unkempt, blood oozing from various wounds. 

Keith kicked him in the stomach once again but Evil Shiro held fast and squeezed his wrist. 

“I look like him. You could never hurt him.” The bones snapped and Keith cried out. “You are weak,” he hissed before grabbing Keith’s jaw and once again squeezing. “And it’s time to silence you permanently. 

The bones were crushed and tears sprang to his eyes. Blood started to pour into his mouth as the clone smashed him into the ground, punching him repeatedly over and over and over again breaking his ribs, his jaw, his legs, his hand. Through the blood, Keith could see Hunk and Pidge try and overpower Sendak, but it didn’t work. 

Hunk was smashed into the largest crystal, causing the power in the ship to decrease even more and plunging them into near darkness. Perhaps it was because Keith was part-galra that his eyes were able to see through. Hunk lay unconscious and bloody with shards of crystal sticking out of his back, arms, legs, and sides. The armor he had once worn was smashed to pieces, showing the undersuit. Pidge was all alone in fighting Sendak now. The clone continued to rain down punches and kicks and Keith knew he had to do something. 

This wasn’t Shiro. This wasn’t his brother. Yes, they looked alike, but they weren’t the same person. He had to fight or else everyone would die because of him. Through the pain and the haze of his mind, his fingers found the knife. He gripped it and twisted his body, screaming through the pain and stabbed it blindly into the clone. The clone screamed and stumbled back, yanking the blade from his eye. 

Pidge was now unconscious, with her helmet smashed and Sendak standing over her with his claws dripping with blood. Keith tried to stand, tried to fight, but his left leg had been twisted and wouldn’t support any weight. The clone turned back towards him, his right eye slashed closed. Keith knew this would be the end. He had his knife back but he couldn’t fight anymore. Everything hurt so much and more blood was bubbling to his lips. 

The clone’s arm transformed once more into a blade and he leapt at Keith, ready to strike him down. He was shot, mid-air, and went sailing into the wall. Keith looked over to see Lance, with his bayard out, breathing and coughing up blood, but still shooting at the clone. 

Keith turned back towards Sendak and threw his knife with all his might, embedding the blade into Sendak’s back. The shots from Lance’s gun stopped and he collapsed back on the ground. 

Keith’s own vision went fuzzy and dark. He hoped they had managed to defeat Sendak and the Clone, and that Thace would set Shiro and the others free. This couldn’t all be for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith is just having the worst day. Alright and that's a wrap on the story. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Just kidding, we got some more to go.


	15. Shiro Tuns into Samual L. Jackson (Briefly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to listen to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" while reading the latter part of the chapter.

Shiro was desperately trying to get his breathing under control. He hadn’t let it show when Sendak and Thace were here, but being chained up like this, being tortured like this again, he was losing his mind and fast. But he couldn’t lose his mind. He couldn’t. He had to think about Keith, about Lance and Hunk and Pidge. He had to think about Allura and Coran. 

“Shiro, please, breath, try and remain calm,” Allura said, her voice sounding just a bit panicked and, well, that panic in her voice wasn’t doing Shiro any favors. 

He snorted a laugh. “Thanks for the advice.” He didn’t mean to be rude, there was little Allura or Coran could do at the moment to help him so they were forced to give pathetic and useless advice. 

He hit his head on the wall. “I didn’t want to be back here.” He hit it again. “I never wanted to be back here.” He hated himself for breaking down, for being so weak. He had to figure out a way out of here, but being trapped in this cell with the darkness and the metal cuffs brought back everything he had pushed down, everything he had hidden. 

“Shiro, you need to stop. We’ll figure a way out,” Coran said, his voice firm but gentle, contrasting Allura’s shaky suggestion earlier. “I know this isn’t ideal, but Pidge has likely contracted Lance and Hunk. If Sendak had found any of them, we’d know.” 

He took a shuddery inhale and nodded. Sendak loved to gloat. He loved to hurt people and, oh God, if he found one of those kids he’d likely torture and murder them right in front of Shiro. “This is all my fault,” he said, his voice cracking and tears springing to his eyes. 

“It’s not your fault,” Coran said, once again firm. “It’s Zarkon’s fault. Now take a few deep breaths. Sendak doesn’t have the Yellow or Blue Lions and he doesn’t have any of the children.”

“He also doesn’t have any way to contact the main fleet,” Allura added. “At least, not yet. Our main priority is getting out of here and taking out Sendak, the Clone, and the Commander. The sentries will be relatively easy after that.” 

“Agreed,” he said. The stump of his right arm was screaming in pain, the heavy metal pulling on it and his shoulder so much that it felt like it was going to tear off. He shifted to try and hold the weight on his legs, but it did little to help. 

“I’m sorry, Shiro, I shouldn’t have deactivated the arm.” 

“No, like you said, it’s not anyone’s fault but Zarkon, and also Sendak because fuck that guy.” He nodded, more to reassure himself than anything. “Even if I had the arm, everything happened so fast it’s unlikely I would have been able to do anything.”

“If I can just reach my hair, I have a pin, I’d be able to pick the lock,” Allura said. She stuck her tongue out and started to try and maneuver into position. 

“Once you’re out, you will be able to remove the disk, right?” Shiro asked, letting Allura concentrate on her task. 

“Yep, it’ll be easy enough once I have my hands free.” 

Shiro was glad he was here with Coran and Allura. Before, in his cell, he was all alone, with only his worst nightmares to keep him company. Here, he had people to keep him grounded, people that were filled with hope and determination. It had been a long time since Shiro met someone filled with hope. Despite his breakdown, they were starting to rub off on him. He could feel himself getting hopeful. Maybe his nightmare was finally almost to an end. Once this was all over, they could find Keith and they could live a normal, happy existence among the stars, just like what Shiro always wanted to do. 

They heard footsteps approaching and froze. 

“That’s too light to be Sendak,” Shiro said. “Do you think it’s the Clone?” 

“If it is, I hope he’s coming here because he really was brainwashed and is now coming to his senses.” Allura whispered. 

They held their breath and waited. The footsteps came to a halt in front of the door. It slid opened. 

“What do you want?” Allura hissed. 

Thace ducked inside and knelt by Coran’s side and started fiddling with the cuffs. “I am on your side. I’m a spy against the Galra Empire and have been working on slowing their execution of Project Kuron.”

“Project Kuron?” Shiro asked. He narrowed his eyes and studied the Galra soldier. Should he trust this man? 

The cuffs came off of Coran and he moved to Shiro. “Yes. Zarkon, the previous Black Paladin realized his connection had weakened and sent Haggar to investigate. She discovered that you were the new Black Paladin and demanded you be killed. However, Haggar pointed out that we didn’t know who the other paladins were and assumed they would be against the Galra Empire, so they devised a plan to clone you and put your clone in a position to discover the rest of the lions.”

Shiro’s wrist fell from the cuffs.

“Can you turn back on the arm?” Thace asked Coran. “We have to hurry. Right now he has no idea where the children are, but based off of my interactions with Keith, I think it’s safe to say they won’t stay away for very long.” 

“Keith?” 

“Yes. I managed to keep him relatively safe from harm while in the presence of Sendak and the Clone. I also put him on an escape pod and got him off the ship and away from the danger.” 

Allura’s hands came loose and she glared at Thace. “How do we know we can trust you? All we have to go on is your word.” 

Thace pursed his lips and nodded to himself before pulling out a knife, a knife with the same symbol on it as Keith’s knife, but it wasn’t his knife. 

“This is the symbol of the resistance group I am a part of,” Thace said. 

“But Keith…”

“I know, this is very confusing. Also, Shiro, do you remember Ulaz?” 

Shiro nodded. 

“He is a part of the resistance as well.”

Shiro furrowed his brow. “He’s still alive? I thought the Galra had--”

“No, I got him out. It was a pain to do so without blowing my cover, but I managed it.” Thace laughed, though it sounded a bitter in Shiro’s opinion. 

He stood and turned to Allura. “Your Highness, I know this is hard, but you have to trust me, at least until we take the Castle back from Sendak and retire the Clone.” 

Allura still seemed unsure. She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say was interrupted by the lights flickering before going off completely. 

“What is going on?” Shiro asked, his heart rate speeding up. 

“What’s going on?” Thace demanded into a small communicator. Nothing but static answered him back. He took a shuddery breath. “We have to get to the crystal room,” he said. The lights flickered back on. 

“Why? What’s going on?” Allura asked. 

“I think the children were found. We have to go get them.” 

“Sendak will slaughter them,” Shiro cried, sprinting to the door. 

Thace grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Keep control of yourself. We can’t afford any mistakes.” 

Shiro took a deep breath and nodded. He put himself into a place where emotions were not a thing. He could fight. He could win. He turned to Thace and nodded. “Let’s do this.” Right now he had anger boiling in his veins, the type that would focus him on his goal: to slaughter everything that was Galra (except for Thace because he did seem to legitimately be on their side). 

They were faced with a large army of sentries, all looking ready to kill. 

“Shit,” Thace cursed under his breath. “I didn’t realize Sendak brought so many. We’re going to have to get around them carefully so that we don’t escalate things. Those kids are our first priority.”

“With all due respect, I don’t think we should be trusting you,” Allura hissed. “You’re a Galra soldier.”

Shiro tuned out the argument, that wasn’t important. He was instead looking at the bots ahead of them. If he could just...no that wouldn’t work. Maybe...no, that was too simple. He had to figure out a way to take out the guards quietly, but quickly, without a lot of danger or...wait.

“Keith’s not here.” Shiro murmured. 

Allura and Thace stopped arguing to stare at him. 

“Um, no, he’s...not?” Thace looked quizzically at Allura and Coran who just shrugged. 

Shiro grinned. “There’s no kids around, which means that I don’t have to be a good role model.”

“Um, I don’t think--” Allura didn’t get to finish her sentence as Shiro hurtled out from behind the barrier, smashing his foot into the head of a sentry. 

“Catch these hands you motherfuckers!” Shiro shouted, transforming his arm into a blade and slicing through another one. 

“Shiro!” Everyone screamed, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t had the chance to be reckless and badass for like ten months now. Keith was the kind of kid that took everything to the extreme so he had to be careful he wasn’t accidently instilling bad habits in him. But now, Keith wasn’t here which meant Shiro could be as badass as he wanted. 

“Yeet motherfuckers!” He said, launching a sentry into the air. 

“What the hell is a Yeet?” Thace looked at Allura and Coran, who looked as though they had the same questions. 

He sliced the hand of a sentry off, caught the gun, twirled around and fired. “Boom! Headshot!”

They were all converging on him, but he gleefully smashed his way through them. All that anger and pain he had been holding in, trying to hide so that he didn’t get Keith caught up in something and get hurt, or worse. He was so done with everything. He was done with running, done with keeping his head down, done with this whole goddamn empire. He was going to destroy them. He was going to rip apart Zarkon’s armies as though they were made of paper and only then would that bastard know what true fear was. Shiro was not going to let himself hide anymore. 

“Are all humans this insane?” Thace asked, gaping at Shiro furiously cutting through the sentries as though they were mere children’s toys. He had known that the man could be a ferocious warrior, Haggar had once described him as a Galra trapped in a weak body, but this was something beyond his comprehension. 

“Imma beat this motherfucker with another motherfucker!” Shiro shouted, grabbing ahold of the ankle of one bot and swinging its entire body up and over to smash into another bot. 

Allura just smiled nervously as they continued to watch the chaos continue to unfold.

“You motherfuckers want to know why you haven’t invaded Earth yet? This is why!” Shiro grabbed ahold of another sentry and ripped it in half with his bare hands. 

“Dear god, if every human is as insane as this one, I understand Zarkon’s hesitance in attacking them.” 

Finally, the last sentry fell to the ground, utterly destroyed and smashed beyond repair. Shiro was breathing heavily, still standing triumphant above the piles of decimated robot corpses. There were cuts and bruises on him, sure, and one nasty looking bruise on his temple, but he was still alive. 

“Um, Shiro, my boy, are you alright?” Coran asked, inching towards him. 

“Never better. I’ve wanted to fucking destroy these fucking things for years!”

“Why haven’t you before?” Allura asked, stepping around the pieces. 

“Are you kidding? I’ve got an eighteen-year-old with a penchant for knives and fist fights. I’m not going to make it seem okay to do reckless things.” 

They all looked at each other, trying to make sense of what was happening. 

“Um, right, we need to find the paladins before Sendak and the clone finds them.” Allura picked up a blaster and sprinted down the halls, the others following in suite. 

They reached the crystal room and Shiro’s adrenaline high came crashing down. Not because he had stopped producing adrenaline, but because he realized what had happened in this room. 

“No,” Allura said, her voice barely above a whisper with her hands clasped in front of her face. 

The crystals were almost completely destroyed, smashed and scattered on the ground. There was something smeared on the walls. Shiro realized, with a jolt, that it was blood. Sparks came out sporadically from wires hanging from the ceiling. In front of them was Shiro’s worst nightmare. 

There were bodies scattered around the floor, human bodies, the bodies of the kids he had gotten to know so well in the past day. 

“No, we can’t be too late. They have to still be alive!” Allura dashed forward to Hunk, who was laying in front of the largest crystal with shards embedded in his back. 

“Princess look out!” Thace cried, tackling her to the ground just as Shiro came out, arm turned into a blade, ready to strike. 

Shiro took a second to shake himself out of his stupor and realized that the clone was in bad shape. He looked to be missing an eye with cuts and bruises covering his body. Shiro narrowed his eyes and dashed forward, his own arm transforming into a blade and slashing at him. 

The clone countered easily. “I could beat you. I’ve had more training than you. I have a better arm than you!” He shouted, turning to counter Shiro’s attacks beat for beat.  
“What is it with people and having better arms?” Shiro muttered. 

Thace jumped to his feet and dashed to aid Shiro, transforming his blade into a rather impressive sword and slashing at him. Shiro wondered, briefly, if Keith’s own knife could do that as well. 

They were almost able to get the upper hand, but their luck didn’t hold. Sendak staggered to his feet, with Keith’s knife embedded into his back. 

He was missing an arm as well, but charged at Shiro and Thace anyways. 

“Traitor! You will die!” he shouted. He didn’t manage to get to them as Allura placed a well timed kick at his head. 

“No one messes with my paladins,” she growled, her eyes burning with hatred. 

Coran came up from behind with a pole and smashed it into Sendak’s side, causing him to cry out and crash to the side. 

“Be careful of the children!” Thace shouted, managing to kick the Clone’s feet out from under him. 

Shiro took his chance and grabbed the stump and brought down his own blade upon his Clone’s own arm, severing it. 

Thace picked up the clone and smashed him into the wall, knocking him unconscious. 

They turned to help Allura and Coran, only to see that they didn’t need any help. Allura had somehow gotten a hold of a whip and snapped it around Sendak’s legs, yanking hard and causing him to spiral to the ground. Once again, Coran raised the metal pipe and smashed it down on his head, knocking him out as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't tell, one of my favorite versions of Shiro is the version where he is 100% reckless and impulsive but tries not to be because he's got an angsty emo teenager to consider.


	16. The Search for Crystals and Blood Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tigger Warning: torture, mentions of mutilation and dead bodies, blood and panic attacks. Stay safe lovelies!

“We need to secure these two before they can wake up,” Thace said, grunting as he pulled the clone out of the way of the debris. “And we also need to make sure everyone is...well not alright, but at this point I’d settle for alive.” 

Shiro stumbled forward, through the chaos, taking everything in. It almost felt like he were in a movie, watching his actions instead of completing them himself. His whole body was somehow both numb and hyper aware of everything going on around him.

“I think you need to get with them as well,” Allura snarled, her and Coran’s weapons still raised. 

It sounded, to Shiro, almost as though he were listening to the argument underwater. 

“I helped you. We can’t spend time arguing now, we need to help the children.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near them,” Coran said. “Not until we can prove that you aren’t going to turn around and stab us in the back.” 

Across from Shiro was Lance, slumped over with a gun in his hand. He was bleeding from the mouth. Blood. The smell of blood. It was so overwhelming that Shiro felt himself gag. Fresh blood didn’t smell. So why was this smelling. The cell. The cell. The fights. The blood. Sendak cut off his arm and laughed as he did so. 

Pidge was across from him with her helmet smashed clean off her head. The force it would have taken to do that. There was a live tangle of wires above her, illuminating her prone body, an arm twisted in an unnatural way. 

The whole scene seemed to flicker and for a moment, Shiro was in a room caked with blood and parts and bodies stacked high to the ceiling. 

“We need to get fix the crystals. The entire ship runs on them and without them, we have no way of healing them!” Allura cried. 

“I understand that,” Thace said, “but we have to figure out a way to secure these two. Unless you want to perform an execution?” 

Shiro felt himself tip forward, his eyesight going very dark very quickly. He couldn’t feel his arms, either of them. Did Sendak cut off the other one? Was it still at his side? 

His knees slammed to the floor and he looked up at the mural of blood and destruction above him. Burn marks, slashes, bullet holes, wires, and shards of crystals lay in front of him. He once read about a modern art exhibit that was supposed to showcase the horrors of war with the body of a child on one side and the body of a soldier on the other side. Apparently the artist had used real pig’s blood to paint the rest of the installation.

He couldn’t breath now. His chest was constricting his throat was completely closed. He fell forward to his hands, gasping for air. Except, his left arm met with an uneven and soft surface, slipping off onto the floor. He turned and recognized a very worn boot by his side. His chest constricted further now as he crawled forward to get a better look at the figure. 

Maybe this was Hell. Maybe this entire thing was the result of some neverending torture. Each time he thought it couldn’t get any worse, it got worse. 

“Keith?” he managed to gasp out, still not quite being able to draw in a breath. He rested a shaking hand on the side of his face. It was bruised to the point where the eye Shiro could see was swollen shut, and there was blood coating the front of his chin, mouth, and nose. It was coming from his nose. And his mouth. His mouth felt weird under Shiro’s hand. It felt like there was no bone. 

“Come on, buddy, time to wake up.” The sporadic sparks coming from the ceiling occasionally flashed more light over him. There seemed to be a white rod coming out of one of his arms. A bone, Shiro realized, almost idly. 

He put his hand on his shoulder and shook him slightly. “Open your eyes. Come one, I know you can.” Blood was trickling out of his ear as well. Shiro ran his hand through Keith’s hair. It was sticky and pulling it away revealed a coating of red on his hand. 

“We can do both the crystals and the children!” Thace shouted. 

“I don’t want you in a position of power over us!” Allura said. 

Shiro blinked a few times, his hand still working through Keith’s hair. Keith coughed a bit, more blood coming to his lips.

“He’s alive,” Shiro gasped. He was alive and coughing blood which meant that he had a punctured lung and needed to be treated immediately. 

As much as he wanted to stay by Keith’s side, he needed to see who else was alive. He ran over to Lance and pressed two fingers to his throat. There was a pulse, it was weak and Lance also had blood on his lips, but he was alive. Shiro dashed over to Pidge, who let out a groan as soon as he collapsed to his knees in front of her. Alive as well. Last was Hunk. He seemed to have the strongest pulse out of all of them but with so many crystals sticking out of him, he was losing blood fast. 

Why weren’t Thace, Allura, and Coran doing anything? They were arguing, that was why. Shiro understood Allura’s trepidation in trusting Thace, he was clearly a Galra soldier after all, but they could deal with that later. 

“Alright, enough!” he shouted. 

Everyone stopped talking and stared at him, surprised at his sudden outburst. 

“We cannot spend time arguing. These kids are dying. Coran, what is the power situation like?” 

Coran snapped out of his surprise and went over to the thankfully intact monitor and started typing some things in. “It’s not looking good. It seems as though most of the crystals were destroyed, probably during the fight.” 

“But there is power?” 

Coran massaged his brow. “Not enough to operate the pods to heal the Paladins, though.” 

Shiro looked over at Keith, who was still breathing, but he was pale, and getting paler by the second. “Thace, does anyone else know we’re on this planet?” 

Thace shook his head. “No, Sendak hasn’t had a chance to contact the main fleet. They know we’re going to try and meet up with you, but our last interaction with the main fleet was in the Vlium System.” 

Shiro took a deep breath. He had to remain calm now. They were counting on him to make sure everyone lived. “Divert all the power you can to the pods. Even if we can’t heal them, we can at least put them in stasis until we get the more crystals.” 

Allura shook her head. “These are Balmera crystals. They’re incredibly rare and difficult to find.” 

“My...friend, Ulaz works on a Balmera. He’s a doctor as well. I can contact him and get him to help us. I’ll also contact the blades and see if they can provide some protection until we get the Paladins healed and the castle back in working order.”

“No,” Allura said. “I don’t want any more Galra anywhere near us. I can’t risk it.” Her voice was shaking and Shiro realized that she was trying to keep it together just as much as he was. 

“I’m not that injured. I can fly the Black Lion if necessary, but we need Ulaz. I kind of remember him and he was a good doctor.” Shiro said. 

Allura paused and nodded, still looking unsure. 

“Alright, but we’ll have to get into contact with the Blades eventually,” Thace said. 

“We’ll worry about that later. Coran, divert as much of the power as you can to the pods. Allura, you and I will transport them down to the med bay. Thace, find a way to secure the Clone and Sendak, and then get in contact with Ulaz.” 

Everyone nodded their understanding and then set to work. Allura sprinted down the hall, Shiro following close behind her. If he stopped to think, he wouldn’t be able to leave Keith. So he decided to focus solely on the task at hand. He could panic later. He would panic later. He would completely breakdown in a way that was ugly and terrifying. But that was later, and this was now.

“I’m so sorry, Shiro,” Allura said as they skidded into the med bay. She started pulling out what looked like stretchers and Shiro was relieved to see that they were the floating type, so they wouldn’t have to transport the kids one at a time. 

“What for?” 

“I...I didn’t help them immediately. I was arguing with Thace when we should have been keeping them alive. If you weren’t there--”

“It doesn’t matter, now. They’re all still alive and they will all remain alive.” 

“I feel so guilty for forcing them into this. I wish the Lions didn’t choose the Paladins, that they could be flown by anyone.” 

He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her back out of the med bay and back towards the crystals. “Again, that doesn’t matter now. We have to work with what we got. What we have are you, Coran, myself, at least one sentient robot lion, and apparently an underground resistance group that’s just brimming with Galra traitors.” 

Allura nodded and steadied herself. “I will contact the Blades, but after we meet Ulaz. I just want to make sure. I don’t want anyone to get hurt again.” 

“I understand, and I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening.” 

They made their way back to the room to see Coran still furiously typing at the computer, occasionally leaving it to McGuyver some wires to attach to the crystals. Thace was kneeling next to Pidge with a communicator and he was speaking to someone. 

“You have to be more specific than her left size, Laz,” he said. 

“Her ribcage goes from under the arms down to about the midpoint and wraps around the body. It’s the same on humans as it is in Galra.” Ulaz’s tired voice came from the monitor. 

“How should I know how a human is structured? I’ve never actually seen one in person before!” Thace said. 

“You already got in contact with him?” Shiro asked, bringing the stretchers in.

“Ah, Shiro, it’s so good to hear you again. I'm glad your not dead. I was telling Thace, but I’ll tell you as well, get Keith and Lance into the pods and divert most of the power to them. It appears that both of them have punctured lungs so that’s what we need to focus on the most.” Ulaz said. “Shay’s getting the Crystals now.” He paused to yawn. “I’ll be here with her and in a few vargas provided the fleet hasn’t moved and we can get through without incident.” 

Shiro nodded and went to load Keith onto the stretcher. 

Ulaz continued. “If you can, leave Hunk out, I’ll need to operate on him to remove the shards and I don’t want the pods to start healing around them.” 

“What about Pidge?” Allura asked, she seemed to be at least a little warmer towards Ulaz. 

Shiro heard a crash followed by a string of curses. 

“I told you not to put the table there,” Thace grumbled. 

“Shut up and go punch Sendak a few more times for me. Pidge should be put in the pods. I’m worried about a concussion. Do you have the Crystal, Shay?” 

“I thought it took a long time to grow a crystal the size that we need.” Coran said. Now that the remaining crystals were giving steady power to the pods, he had started to sweep up the rest of the shards. 

“The Balmera happens to like me very much. I have to go. You’ll still be able to contact me so if their conditions change contact me immediately.” 

The communicator clicked off and Thace turned to help load Pidge. “Get them to the pods. I’ll follow.” 

Shiro and Allura nodded and started to guide the stretchers to the med bay. 

“Normally, we put on a cryo-suit to keep them from getting hypothermia,” Allura explained. “But I don’t want to move them too much and cause them more harm.” 

Shiro nodded and shifted to put Keith in the cryopod. He seemed so small, just as small as when they first met. Shiro still remembered how his feet didn’t even touch the ground of the ship and how he had to sit on a pile of books to see up and over the the counsel. He wanted to keep touching Keith, keep a hand on him just to make sure that he was really there and still alive, but Allura pulled him back. 

“He’ll be okay, Shiro. He’s strong.” 

They stepped back and the pod closed, the lights flickering a bit as both him and Lance were frozen, put in stasis until they could get proper medical help. Shiro prayed there wouldn’t be any lasting damage, choosing to ignore the likely mental scars that would be harder to heal. 

“Can you help me with Pidge and Hunk?” Thace called as he stepped into the bay. 

“Where’s Coran?” Allura asked, helping him put Pidge in another pod and starting it up. 

“He’s making sure that Sendak and the Clone are properly secured. There’s not enough power to put them in the stasis pods below, but we’re just keeping them in a room, unconscious until we can move them. Don’t worry, Ulaz is going to bring a lot of sedatives to keep them asleep.” 

Allura nodded. “What are we going to do about Hunk? Ulaz said not to put him in a pod, but the rate he’s bleeding, we have to do something.” 

“I have a first aid kit in my ship,” Shiro said. “It has some cream that stops bleeding.” 

“That should work.” Thace responded. “Most of the shards are on his back so an he doesn’t seem to be having any trouble breathing so we should be able to keep him on his stomach.”

“I’ll go get them then.” Shiro turned and walked away. He was still somewhat numb and that worried him. He had enough of a grasp on reality to know that the dam was going to break any time now, but he didn’t know when. If he could just hold on a little longer, just a few vargas longer until an actual doctor got here and told him for sure that Keith was going to make it. 

The ramp to his ship was off kilter, the blast from the grenade taking out a good chunk of one of the landing gears. Shiro’s fingers trailed over the metal and he looked around the place he had called home for so long now. It seemed to be completely destroyed and he didn’t know how they were going to fix it. Could they even fix it? If he was truly the Black Paladin, and if what Allura said earlier was true, did he really have no choice but to fight in this war?

Before, when he was facing down the sentries, the choice seemed easy. He was tired of running and hiding and he wanted to destroy the empire. But Keith...oh God Keith was hurt. He was hurt so badly that he didn’t make a sound as Shiro and Allura transported him to the pods. He was so injured that Ulaz wanted him to be put in the pod immediately. What would happen to Keith if Shiro took up the mantle of Paladin? Would he be allowed to stay in the Castle? Would he be safe in the Castle? 

He made his way to his room and squeezed his eyes shut upon seeing the state of his room. There were knives scattered over the floor and bedding, the box Shiro regularly kept them in off on the floor. He worked his fingers under the pillow and pulled out the meal bar he had hidden there earlier. God, was it still the same day? It felt like years ago that he and Keith were still on their ship, still arguing about food and resolving problems with threats of Vrepit Sal’s. 

He grabbed the med kit, checking to make sure there was a good amount of something roughly translated as Blood Stop, and walked out the ship. Thace and Allura were waiting for him, Hunk on a table with bandages roughly wrapped around some of the worse injuries. 

“Thank you, Shiro,” Allura took the Blood Stop from his hands and began slathering it on Hunk’s back.

“Here,” Thace handed him Keith’s knife. “Kid’s one hell of a shot.”

“He practices.” Shiro said, taking the knife from his hands and turning it over in his hands and seeing the symbol reflect in the life. “Keith said this is...was his mother’s.” 

Thace sighed and clapped him on the back. “I don’t know, Shiro. He was never in our database. I think Ulaz would remember a half-human, half-galra hybrid.” 

They sat in silence for a bit, the pods humming in the background. Coran came and joined them, eventually. 

“Those bastards should be out for a while, now,” he said, his eyes burning with hatred. “Do you know how much longer it will take for the Crystal to get here?” 

Thace sighed. “Probably another varga or two. According to the fleet information, nothing has changed with the rotation so he should be clear to fly through.” 

They descended into silence again, each wandering between the kids, looking at them, studying them, making sure that there was still a heartbeat being picked up in each pod, and that Hunk’s pulse was still strong. 

Finally, Shiro came to a stop in front of Keith’s. He felt slightly guilty that he wasn’t giving more time to the other paladins. At the same time, he didn’t really care. Keith was his brother. He had raised him, protected him, sheltered him, supported him, and made a promise to never leave him. He stared at him in the pod. His lips were blue and his skin was pale with dark circles under his eyes. 

He put his hand on the pod. “I’m so sorry, Keith. I’m so sorry.” And then, not caring about who was here or what would they think, he started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that Allura is written kind of bitchy in this version of the story which I'm not sure I like because I really do like Allura. But she is a teenager who was forced into a war without any time to properly grieve and is getting betrayed left and right. So I figure her trepidation, especially towards Thace, is well warranted.


	17. Enter the Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The greatest thing about writing Thace and Ulaz is that you can pretty much do anything you want since they were in the show for such a short time. Was Thace in the Emperor Zarkon's Military Mariachi Band? Who knows. Not the fans. Does Ulaz know how to juggle with is left food? You can't tell me that he doesn't.

Surprisingly, it was Allura who came to him first. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t that surprising. It wasn’t like Shiro expected Thace to come and try and make him feel better. Still, as he fell to his knees in front of Keith’s healing pod that looked so much like a coffin, Allura was beside him in an instant, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close. 

She was not, necessarily, trying to comfort him. She wasn’t telling him that everything was going to be okay or that he had nothing to worry about. She was crying as well. They needed each other’s comfort in that moment. Shiro suspected that he and Allura were more similar than one might suspect, that his own emotions on the past few hours could easily be transferred over to hers with little manipulation. 

The past few years he had spent so much of his energy trying to shove everything down. It didn’t always work, especially when he slept, so he tried not to sleep, but he kept his damage to himself. Keith was younger than him. Keith needed more guidance and help. Shiro was the adult in the situation and therefore, his emotions did not matter as much, if at all. Besides, it would be horrible for him to try and force a child to deal his own mental health problems. So he remained strong, hoping that if he faked it enough, it would eventually become a reality. 

The universe had other plans and now with the Clone and the attack, Shiro was forced to confront everything he had been running from. More to the point, he had been slapped upside the head with the knowledge that no matter how hard he tried or how fast he ran, he could never keep Keith safe. The universe was brimming with dangers and time and time again, they would find him and hurt him.

So there Shiro sobbed, not because Keith was hurt or he had just had a very traumatic experience with Sendak, again. It wasn’t because Shiro was scared that his little brother wouldn’t make it or that Thace would turn around and kill them all. 

It was that he was truly helpless. He was alone in a universe desperate to hurt him and no matter what he planned, no matter what he tried, he would never be able to outrun this. This was an inevitability and it crushed him to know that there was nothing he could do. There was no plan. There was no learning from this experience. 

Which led him to the two thoughts that kept running through his mind, over and over again until they blurred together: how much longer can we survive? How much longer can I keep him safe?

They couldn’t last for much longer, he already knew that the morning they woke up to go to the Space Mall. And he had already failed to keep Keith safe. So now, here he was, Keith’s battered and bloodied face visible through the glass and next time this happened, it would be a coffin. 

There was nothing he could do.

Two pairs of hand rested on Shiro’s shoulders, and he suspected they rested on Allura’s as well. 

“They’ll be fine. They’re all very strong,” Coran said. 

Shiro wondered if he also wanted to just break down and cry, only he was keeping it together because it wouldn’t help if everyone was a sobbing mess. 

Thace was on the other side of him, steadying him. He said nothing. Shiro suspected that he wanted to comfort him with similar words to Coran’s, perhaps tell him that Ulaz was the best doctor in the universe or that Zarkon would be defeated. However, he seemed to know that none of those words would truly help the situation. What had he gone through before this point? 

Finally, he stood up. “Coran, if you show me to your kitchen, perhaps we can bring some water for them.” 

Coran blinked at him for a moment before standing up himself and nodding. “Yes, that wouldn’t probably be best. What about food?” 

“There are enough meal replacements in Shiro’s ship we can use.” 

“Don’t you think we could use something a bit more substantial?” 

Thace shook his head and started walking to the door. “Let’s just keep it quick and easy. I’m sure no one really wants to be eating after what just happened.” 

Their footsteps echoed down the hall, getting quieter and quieter with each tick. 

Finally, Allura unwound herself from Shiro and sat back against a column, her eyes glazed with tears, looking at each of the paladins scattered around the room. Her eyes rested on Keith for a moment before shaking her head and letting out another quiet sob.

“I’m so sorry, Shiro. I’m so sorry for not trusting you. I’m sorry.” Tears once again began to flow freely from eyes and she scrubbed them away. “My paladins, they’re all hurt or...how could he betray us? How could he throw away everything on Earth?”

He shrugged. He was tired and drained and didn’t want to do anything else for the rest of the day. He just wanted to sit by Keith and make sure that he was still alive, that he was still breathing. 

“Lance looked up to him, you know?” Allura continued. “I mean, they all did, I think, but Lance thought of him as a hero. How is he going to deal with this? How are any of them going to deal with this?” 

He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed her close. 

“And Keith,” she took a shuddery breath, “Keith is uninvolved in this entire thing but I got him involved and now...I mean, they’re all so hurt. What if Ulaz can’t do anything? What if we failed?” 

She let out a few more sobs. “Screw Voltron, screw this entire thing I just want them to be alive and well and they’re not. They’re not well and I can’t do anything about it.”   
Shiro was about to speak when he felt a familiar pull in the back of his head. His shoulders relaxed and he pictured a cat, winding its way around his body, wrapping its tail around him, pulling him close and giving him warmth and comfort. 

“I’m not so sure about Keith being uninvolved,” Shiro said, slurring slightly. His mind was starting to get a little fuzzy, but he wasn’t scared. The Black Lion made sure to let him know that she and the other lions would keep watch and let him know if something happened. 

“What do you mean?” Allura had relaxed into his side, the tears starting to dry on her face. 

“I don’t know. Black was trying to tell me something.” Shiro put his free hand on the pod and looked up at Keith. This kid would be involved in some Mecha-Sentient Robot Fight club and not even be aware of it. “I’m tired, though. I think she wants me to sleep.” 

“What about Zarkon?” Allura said through a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“She’ll watch out for him. She’ll protect us.” Shiro eyes slipped closed and he and Allura fell asleep. 

oOoOoOo

A hand was gently shaking him. Shiro groaned and went to press his hand to Keith’s face, desperate for a few more minutes of sleep. “Does this thing have an off switch?” he mumbled. His body was in a really weird position. Did he fall asleep in the cockpit again? No, it wasn’t squishy enough to be the chair (though, to be fair, the chair hardly had any stuffing left).

“What...does that mean?” Thace asked, his voice somewhat muffled by Shiro’s hand. 

Shiro’s eyes flew open and he lept up. Allura, who had been sleep against him, let out a strangled cry and fell to the ground. 

Shiro waved his hands, unsure who he should apologize to first. “I am so sorry, I thought you were Keith!” He blurted out, more because he was embarrassed that he touched the man so casually. 

“What’s going on?” Allura asked, yawning as she sat up and attempted to get her hair under control. Her fingers caught on a few stubborn knots and refused to work their way through. She sighed and let the tangled mess be for now. 

Thace raised an eyebrow at him, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, sighed, and then said, “You know what, I don’t really want to know. But, Laz, um Ulaz, is almost here and he’ll probably need your help with some things.”

Allura stood up and stretched. “Like what?” 

“Well, it appears that he brought one Balmeran to help set up the Crystal which means that anything medical he will probably need a few extra pair of hands,” Thace said.   
“Why’d he only bring one other person?” Shiro asked. He was feeling better after the short nap he took, even if his neck and shoulders were now stiff and the burns he had gotten earlier were started to act up. He should have probably dealt with that. 

“The Balmerans aren’t the type to travel into space and they are needed to help keep the Balmera alive. Allura didn’t want any more blades either so unless you have a suggestion for where we can get a few loyal volunteers with advanced medical knowledge on human bodies, you’re all we got.” Thace patted him on the back in a way that was encouraging but also a bit apologetic. 

“Is Hunk still okay?” Allura asked. They probably should have put him in a pod, especially since Ulaz was taking a few vargas to get here. 

Thace nodded. “Yes, with Ulaz’s permission I started working out some of the smaller bits of Crystal, though even once we remove the large ones apparently we’re going to have to do a pretty complex surgery to make sure any residual energy is released so that his body isn’t destroyed.” 

“Thace, did you get them up?” Coran called from the hallway. 

“Yes, they’re up.” 

“Excellent, Ulaz’s ship should be here soon.”

“I’ll go meet him,” Shiro said, a little unsure of himself. He didn’t want to leave Keith, but he also didn’t want to just wait here and feel like the seconds were wasting away. At least if he was walking to the entrance and then walking back, he could play it up as an escort or something. 

“I’ll stay here with and make sure everyone is still doing okay,” Allura said. The determination had returned to her and she stood up straighter than before, though her hair was still a mess and her clothes were pretty disheveled, covered in dust, scorch marks, and blood (Shiro wasn’t judging, he probably looked ten times worse). 

“Great, we’ll be right back,” Thace said. 

They went to join Coran and walked to the front doors of the Castle. 

“Has anyone tried to go get the Lions Lance and Hunk took out earlier?” Shiro asked. The wind was picking up and it looked like it might rain any moment. 

“I went to check on them earlier,” Coran said. “The particle barrier is up so no one will be able to enter them. Maybe later we can try and use the Black Lion to move them back to the Castle.”

“If they’re sentient lions, shouldn’t they be able to move themselves?” Thace asked. 

Coran looked as though he were about to explain why, if the lions truly did have a mind of their own, they couldn’t move, before closing his mouth, crossing his arms, and glaring at the ground. “I’m not the one that designed them,” he finally said. 

A ship came into view and it was so much nicer than Shiro’s ship. It wasn’t being affected at all by the wind, there were no pieces held together with space duct tape, its landing gears did not make a worrying grinding noise as they descended and it landed smoothly. It didn’t jerk forward or slide two inches to the left. Wherever the pilot put it down was where the ship stayed. 

“My ship is a piece of crap,” Shiro said to himself. 

Thace clapped a hand on his shoulder still watching the ship as the walkway descended. “It really is.”

Shiro recognized Ulaz, despite the fact that it had been years since he had seen the man. He looked better than Shiro remembered, though his memory was fuzzy and for all he knew, this man wasn’t Ulaz at all and just someone who looked like him. He was followed by what appeared to be a young Balmera, female, judging by the clothes. 

Thace stepped forward. “Ulaz good to see--”

“Shut up, now’s not the time.” He turned to Coran. “Are you Coran?” 

Coran nodded. 

“Fantastic. This is Shay, she’ll help you with the Crystal. Thace, you might need to help them get it to the room, but then after that come back to the med bay to help me out.” 

Shay smiled and waved nervously at Coran, who smiled back at her. “Well, my dear, how about we get this crystal set up.” 

“Alright. Let me show you where it’s at. Doctor!” Shay handed Ulaz a rather large and bulging bag. 

“Oh, right, thank you Shay. Actually, Thace, before you come down to the med bay, grab the rest of my stuff.” 

“The rest of your stuff? How much stuff did you bring? They have pods.” Thace grumbled, though he followed Coran and Shay up the ramp of the ship. 

Ulaz seemed to pay him no attention and started walking through the Castle. “Shiro, it really is good to see that you’re alive and not missing any other limbs. I’m assuming the Princess is still in the med bay?” 

Shiro stumbled to keep up with him. Now that he was back with Ulaz, he remembered the man talked fast, walked fast, and did not give out very much information. “Um, yeah. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be, I really only know first aid.” 

They turned a corner and Shiro was suddenly very aware that Ulaz was leading him and not the other way around. 

“Hold on, how do you know where we’re going?” 

Ulaz turned and blinked at him a few times before smiling and continuing down the exact right path towards the med bay. “I can smell it. And feel it. Nerians have evolved to know where medical facilities are based on the smell.” 

“Nerians?” Shiro asked. He had heard of the race before, had never seen one in person, though. He could ask more questions but Ulaz was on a mission and was not slowing down for anyone. 

Allura, who was by Hunk pulling out small bits of Crystal, turned to them as they entered. 

“Oh thank goodness. What do you need to do?” She asked. 

Ulaz put his bag on the ground and pulled out a mask, gloves, and what looked like a surgical gown. “Take the ones in the pods out.”

“But--”

Ulaz cut her off. “When they get the new crystal in place there might be a power surge that causes the pods to malfunction. Would you agree with the assessment that Keith and Lance are the worst ones at the moment?” 

Allura snapped her mouth shut and nodded. 

“Then I’ll need to focus on them. I’ll give a quick check-up on the other two and help guide you to stabilize them until I can focus on them.” 

Shiro stepped forward to help Allura take Lance out and gently put him on a table. “You’re going to perform surgery on all of these kids in one go? They’re all extremely injured.” Shiro did not want him to make a mistake and end up injuring one of the kids further. 

“Yes. If all goes well and they get the crystal up and running quickly, I estimate about a quintant and a half of surgery.”

“Wait, you’re going to do a quintant and a half of surgery? We have pods,” Allura said, though she and Shiro had managed to get Keith out of the pod and onto a table. 

“They haven’t been calibrated for humans yet. And with Keith not being fully human, we don’t want something to go wrong.” He turned and put both of his hands on Allura’s shoulders. “Please, trust me. I have spent my entire life training to be a doctor. I will heal these children.” 

Allura still seemed skeptical, but nodded and started to take Pidge out while Ulaz did an inspection of Lance, muttering to himself and typing notes on a notepad. 

The rest of the day was more or less a blur. Ulaz worked very efficiently and somehow seemed to be working on all of the kids at once, though healing each of them quickly and efficiently. A few hours later, Thace joined them and he and Allura worked to get some of the larger shards out of Hunk’s back. 

Shiro had somehow been conscripted to helping Ulaz. Though, that wasn’t such a bad thing because, as it turns out, his arm had a lot more settings than hand, blade, and thing that could keep hot drinks hot. He was able to, at Ulaz’s directions, mend cuts and separate others so that the doctor could get in and sew organs back together. 

“Crushed jaw. We’ll need to take him out every few vargas once he’s in the pod to make sure it’s healing right.” Ulaz muttered as he worked his hands around Keith’s face. 

Shiro felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on him. “They crushed his jaw?” How could someone do that? What kind of cruel monster would you have to be to hurt someone like that?

Ulaz paused for a moment and looked at Shiro. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Later. Now we need to help him.” 

He took a few deep breaths and nodded, hating himself for detaching when it felt like Keith needed him the most.

They continued on. The lights flickered and the pods indeed went down in the ground before reappearing above. 

“Excellent,” Ulaz said, not taking his hands or eyes off of Keith’s jaw. “We can start putting them in the pods.

They didn’t put anyone in the pods right away. Ulaz was still stabilizing them and putting rods and pins and replacement blood in them. Finally, Pidge was put into a cryosuit and placed in the pod. Ulaz typed something into the screen on the front, and then stepped away. 

The last piece of crystal was removed from Hunk’s back. It was the largest piece and had smashed several of his vertebrate. Shiro asked if Hunk would walk again. Ulaz seemed confused at the question and put the spine back together again before putting Hunk in a cryopod as well. Next went Keith. Because he wasn’t fully human and had several comminuted fractures he had to be taken out about every three to six vargas to make sure everything was healing properly. Even then, Ulaz suspected that he wouldn’t be able to heal entirely in the pod and would have to do a good amount outside. 

Finally, Lance was put in. Like Keith he had several comminuted fractures that would require him to leave the pod every three to six vargas to ensure they were healing properly and no bone fragments were lodged anywhere they weren’t supposed to be. Unlike Keith, because he was fully human, Ulaz suspected that he would be able to stay in the pod until healed completely. 

Once all the kids were put in the pods with Ulaz’s assurance that they would all live at this point, Allura stumbled away from the med bay, saying that she was going to find Coran and Shay and make sure they were doing alright. 

Thace had managed to fall asleep on a pile of empty bags Ulaz had brought with him. 

He chuckled. “He always could fall asleep anywhere.” 

Shiro nodded and felt very awkward once again. So he walked back over the Keith’s pod, and looked in on him. He looked a lot better, though there was a good amount of gauze and bandages covering his face. 

He jumped when a hand fell on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Ulaz said. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but you have injuries that need to be taken care of as well.” 

Shiro looked down to where a holes had been burned in his clothes. “Oh, no, this is fine. You should get some rest.” 

He chuckled and led Shiro over to an examination table. “I understand if you’re uncomfortable with me checking you over considering what I did to you.” 

Shiro shook his head. “No, it’s not that. Besides, I don’t really remember a lot of the procedures. I was always kind of out of it. Anyways, you’ve been up doing a bunch of surgery for… honestly, I’m not sure what time it is.” 

“I’m glad you didn’t feel anything. That means I was giving you enough anesthetics. Honestly, Shiro, I have enough in me to at least patch you up so you don’t get an infection. So, come on, shirt off.” 

Shiro wanted to argue. He wanted to pretend that everything was still okay and he was doing fine and everything was going wonderfly. He was tired. He was so tired and his feet hurt and his back hurt and this would give him an excuse to stay by Keith a bit more. So he took his shirt off and let Ulaz examine him. 

He was gentle and kept the pain as little as possible. 

“Hm, there’s a significant amount of muscle tearing on your right bicep. After this, I’m going to bind the arm to your torso to give it a bit of a rest.” Ulaz said, his fingers pressing into the muscle. Shiro nodded and the examination continued on. He coughed when Ulaz asked him to cough. He let him look at his teeth and his eyes and his ears. Ulaz made several notes on the tablet and Shiro strongly suspected there were more things wrong with him than just the burns, but for the sake of rest, Ulaz was overlooking them and would probably deal with them later. 

Finally after about an hour, Allura came back in with a set of clothes. 

“These should be about your size, Shiro.” She herself had changed and was looking a lot more pulled together. 

“Princess, do you or Coran have any injuries you need attending to?” Ulaz asked. He started pulling off his gloves and threw them onto a pile of the bloodied ones. 

“No thank you. Luckily, we are fairly unscathed.” She didn’t sound distrustful, just tired as well. “Do you need a room?” 

Ulaz shook his head. “No, I need to stay here and monitor them, just in case. The first five vargas in a pod are the most crucial. If you could just bring down some pillows and blankets, that’ll be fine.” 

“What about Thace?” 

Ulaz laughed. “No, I’ll just roll him onto the pillows. He’ll be fine for now.” 

Allura turned to Shiro and raised an eyebrow at him. 

He opened his mouth, ready to accept the offer. It might be nice to sleep in a bed that wasn’t just a bunch of folded blankets on top of a metal cot. Even Keith, who had a mattress, had a mattress that was so thin and hard that the floor sometimes felt better. Shiro’s body was crying to fall asleep in something comfortable for once. 

His eyes caught Keith’s pod. It was at an angle so he couldn’t see him, but his voice caught in his throat all the same. 

He turned back to Allura and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, barely above a whisper. He opened his mouth to explain, to try and make some sense of what was going on in his head, but all he managed to get out was, “I can’t.” 

Allura nodded and smiled at him. “I can’t either.” She straightened up and smiled a little brighter. “Luckily, we have mattresses and blankets all over this Castle. Give me few moments and we’ll be ready to sleep.”

She walked back out the door and Ulaz smiled, patted Shiro on the shoulder, and led him back to Keith’s pod. 

“He’ll be alright, Shiro. I promise you he will be alright.” 

Shiro nodded before asking something that had been weighing on his mind for years now. “Why did you save me, that day?’

Ulaz looked back at him, surprised. 

“I mean, I was there for five years, deca-phoebs, I mean. Why that day?” 

Ulaz looked thoughtful for a moment, and then sighed. “I want to say that it was some heroic decision on my part. Honestly, though, I had a bit of a complete and total mental breakdown and decided to break every rule and go against every order I had ever been given.”

“Yeah, then you became a spy?” Shiro asked. 

Ulaz laughed. “Oh, no, I had been a spy long before that. When I say I broke every order, I mean it, Shiro. I didn’t just betray the Galra Empire I broke the rules of the Blade as well. I’m lucky I wasn’t court marshaled. Actually, I was, then everything worked out.” 

“So why then? Why did you break down then?” 

He shrugged. “It was a long time coming. I had spent deca-phoebs pushing down every bad thought, every bad feeling, trying to convince myself that I was doing good. But those emotions, they don’t go away. They just reappear in some other form. It was destroying me,” he glanced over at Thace, “and my relationships with others.”

Shiro wanted to press more, but he decided that was for another time. Instead he asked another question. “You said you were Nerian?”

“That’s right.”

“But you’re Galra.” 

“I’m both. A long time ago, what happened to Keith, happened to me. Except, I didn’t escape. I didn’t always look like this. I actually used to look very much like my mother.”

“I’m sorry.” Because what else could you say to something like that? ‘I understand’? Well, Shiro didn’t understand. He had never been through something like this. ‘That’s okay’? Yeah, no, he was not about to tell someone who had likely gone through years of torture that it was okay.

Allura came back in with Coran and Shay, all dragging large mattresses and blankets and pillows with them. 

“Shay, are you alright?” Ulaz asked, leaving Shiro’s side to talk to her.

“Yes. The crystals were all so damaged, but I think we’ve stabilized the ship. Everything should be fine now.”

Ulaz and Shay continued to talk for some time while he helped set up beds and blankets. Shiro laughed when Ulaz, without even pausing his conversation with Shay and Coran about the Crystals and Balmeras, hooked his arms around Thace’s midsection and unceremoniously dragged him towards a little nest of pillows and blankets before plopping him down just as unceremoniously. He then proceeded to plop down next to the unconscious Galra and wrap them both up in blankets.

Shiro blushed and turned away, laying down in his own bed and listening to the hum of the machines. The Black Lion returned, though, this time, it seemed as though all the lions were there, each winding their way around the paladins, trying to comfort them. What was even stranger was the fact that the Red Lion had not gone over to Allura, but rather stayed with Keith. 

Shiro opened his mouth to point it out, but the Black Lion bumped her forehead against his and one word floated through his mind. 

Tomorrow. 

Yes, tomorrow they could deal with the Red Lion. Tomorrow they would need to discuss the Blade and what they were going to do about Sendak and the Clone. Tomorrow Shiro would need to figure out what was going on between Thace and Ulaz and make sure that everyone was still healing according to plan. Tomorrow he would need to decide what he was going to do as the Black Paladin. Tonight, however, for the first time that he could remember, he fell asleep unafraid and protected.


	18. The Awakening of Hunk and Pidge

Shiro did not get a chance to ask Allura about the Red Lion and its apparent connection with Keith until late in the day, mostly because several things happened in quick succession. 

The first thing that happened was that Hunk woke up. 

It had been several hours since everyone had gone to bed in the medical bay and, for the first time, Shiro didn’t have nightmares (thankfully because the last thing he needed was to wake everyone up with his screams). 

He awoke naturally to see Ulaz moving about the room quietly, tapping on his tablet and adjusting knobs and settings on the pods. 

He saw Shiro and smiled. “Are you feeling better now that you’ve gotten some rest?” 

He nodded and stretched, briefly panicking when his right arm didn’t raise before remembering Ulaz had bound it to his torso the night before. “Yeah, how are they doing?” 

“They’re doing wonderfly. I suspect that Hunk and Pidge will both be out some time today.” Ulaz came and helped him up. “Lance and Keith will probably be out later tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“And their bones? I mean, they’re not going to have any permanent damage, right?” Shiro didn’t want any more bad news, but he didn’t want to be kept in the dark either. 

“No, there will be no permanent damage. Keith will likely have a longer recovery time until I can properly calibrate the pod to account for his mixed-heritage, but at this point it’ll be more like bruises and cuts and not the level of damage he had earlier,” he explained. 

Shiro was about to ask some more questions when a pod hissed open. 

“Ah, that’ll be Hunk.” Ulaz turned to help the kid out of the pod. 

He was a little shaky on his feet and was blinking his eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the bright lights. 

“Come on, let’s get you over to an exam table,” Ulaz said. “Do you want me to wake the Princess?” 

“Who are you?” Hunk asked, blinking a few more times. He must have managed to get his eyes to work because they fell on Shiro, who was standing rather awkwardly at the other end of the room. 

They stared at each other for a moment before Hunk scrambled back, yanking his arm out of Ulaz’s grip and screeching “Ah! Evil Shiro!” 

“Evil Shiro?” Ulaz said, sounding more amused that anything. 

Hunk seemed to realize that he was standing next to a nine-foot tall Galra and launched himself back from him. “Ah! The Galra have infiltrated the castle!” 

Allura and Thace were on their feet in an instant, ready to attack. 

“Hunk, I’m not… Evil… Shiro. When did Evil Shiro become a thing?” 

“What’s going on?” Allura demanded, her bayard out and ready to attack. “Have Zarkon’s forces found us?”

“No, Princess. Hunk went into the pods and was knocked unconscious before I got here and you defeated...Evil Shiro.” There was a slight smirk in his lips as he spoke. “We probably should have woken you or Coran up to help calm him.” 

“Wait, what’s going on? Why is there a Galra,” his eyes fell onto Thace, who had put away his knife, determining that they weren’t in any immediate danger, “two Galra here?” 

Shiro hazarded a step forward. Ulaz was back at Hunk’s side and helping him to sit on the examination table. 

“Thace helped get us out of prison and we defeated Sendak and the Clone. Ulaz is a doctor who happened to work on a Balmera so he came to heal you guys and repair the crystals.” 

Hunk narrowed his eyes. “How do I know that you’re not Evil Shiro.” 

Shiro laughed, nervously. Everyone was now awake and staring at him. He turned to Thace. “Do you guys happen to have like a clone detection thing?” 

Thace shrugged. “Nope, sorry. You’re on your own.” 

That was not what Shiro wanted to hear. “I am the real Shiro, Hunk.” That did not sound at all comforting. It sounded lame and like the exact thing Evil Shiro would say to try and trick them into trusting him. Shit. 

“Oh, I knew we were going to have this whole ‘shoot him, he’s the clone’ cliche.” Hunk had crossed his arms around his stomach and was looking seconds away from a panic attack. 

“Wow. Is there supposed to be this much Adenosine in a human brain?” Ulaz asked, his scanner starting beep in such a way that Shiro knew Hunk was panicking.

“No,” Shiro said to Ulaz, and then deciding he had to do something about Hunk because both Allura and Coran seemed to be panicking as well (why was he the only person who seemed to know how to deal with these emergencies?). “Look, Hunk, we haven’t know each other for very long, like, less than a day so I’m not really sure if there is anything that I can do to prove to you that I am the real Shiro. I’m not even sure if I am the real Shiro.” He shot a glance at Thace, who shrugged again.

“Good question, I have no idea how many clones they made. Laz?” 

“Not sure, I wasn’t privy to any of that information.” 

Shiro gave them a thumbs up and a tight smile. “Thanks guys, really helpful. Anyways, Hunk, I can’t guarantee that I am the real Shiro, but I can guarantee that I am not working for Zarkon and that I did not leave Allura’s and Coran’s sight when they first attacked.”

Hunk did not seem to be calming down any, so Shiro decided that he had nothing else to lose and he might as well crack a joke. “I mean, if nothing else, if I really am Evil Shiro, might as well whip me up some Hemlock Mac N’ Cheese and let me ride to death on a wave of cheesy, noodly glory.” 

Ulaz stopped prodding Hunk. “I think my translator is broken.”

“It’s not.” Shiro responded. 

Hunk snorted and started to calm down. 

“Huh, the Adenosine levels are dropping back down to normal. We really should deal with that.” 

“Sorry, Shiro, I didn’t mean to freak out.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t really know what the last thing you remember was, but given the state of the crystal room, it was probably not pleasant.”

Hunk nodded, and then his eyes widened again.

“Oh, the Adenosine levels are rising again.”

“We don’t need commentary, Ulaz!” Shiro snapped.

“The crystals! And the others! Are they alright? What about Sendak and Evil Shiro?” 

Allura stepped forward and put her hands on Hunk’s back. “They’re all fine. Well, Sendak and Evil Shiro aren’t, but that’s not important. The others were beaten pretty badly, but they’re in the pods now and are getting healed.”

“Yes Number Two, Number Four will be out later today and with any luck, Number Three and Keith will be out soon as well.”

“Tomorrow morning at the latest,” Ulaz said. “Now, let me look at your eyes and make sure everything is healing properly.” 

With Hunk taken care of (and him taking a bit of a liking to Shay) Shiro went to tell Allura about his vision of the Red Lion the previous night, only to get side tracked, again, with her and Thace arguing.

“We need to get in contact with the Blade. They are a valuable asset to this war,” he said. 

“I barely trust you, and you want me to invite more Galra onto this ship?” Allura snapped. 

Shiro ran a hand down his face. He thought being around more adults would make his life easier. Instead he was playing mediator between these two instead of figuring out what was going on with Keith and the Red Lion.

“You are outnumbered and have not been in this war for thousands of years, things have changed. You need our help.” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t contact Kolivan yet,” Ulaz said, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact. 

Thace dropped his head and sighed. “What did you do?” 

“Nothing.” 

Thace stared at him. 

“I just didn’t necessarily get permission to, you know, leave the Balmera with an incredibly large crystal as well as several thousands of GAC worth of medical supplies.” 

Thace groaned. “Why--you know what, I don’t want to know. You can deal with Kolivan when he comes.” He turned to Allura. “Princess, I understand your reluctance in dealing with Galra, especially when they have taken so much from you, but you can’t win this war if you try and fight every battle on your own.” 

Allura bit her lip and Shiro decided he needed to intervene. “Allura, I know you are cautious, and you have every right to be after what just happened, but he’s right. The Blade sound like they have a large network of spies in Zarkon’s Empire, spies that could be used to our advantage.” 

“I’m not sure.” 

“No one wins a war alone.” Shiro smiled at her, hoping his words were encouraging. 

She sighed and nodded. “Alright, but I only want to discuss this with your leader. I don’t want an entire army down here and if more than one ship enters the atmosphere, I will kick you out and leave you to rot on this planet.”

“Oh, I like her,” Ulaz said. 

“Seriously, Laz?” Thace growled before straightening up and facing Allura straight on. “Agreed.” He didn’t seem comfortable with Allura’s threats, but went to call his leader. 

So now would have been the perfect time for Shiro to talk to Allura about the Red Lion and what they were going to do about Keith since Shiro was apparently the Black Paladin and he couldn’t very well leave these kids stranded. 

Though, come to think of it, if the Galra really did make several clones of Shiro, maybe they could just find them and have a rotating roster of Shiro Clones to be the Black Paladin and allow Shiro to just do whatever he and Keith wanted. 

He went to talk to Allura. “Hey, Allura, I wanted to talk to you about the Red Lion.”

“Oh, good, Pidge should be waking up soon. Come on, Princess, it would be better if you were there to explain the situation to her.” Ulaz stood up and walked back towards the med bay. 

“Sorry, Shiro, maybe later?” She smiled at him and left the room as well. Shiro groaned and sank back into the chair, listening to a string of curses and shouts come out of Thace’s communicator. 

“Your boss?” Shiro asked. 

“The Leader is very particular about how the Blades should be run.” Thace answered, still listening to the string of words that were pouring out of the communicator. “Sadly, my mate happens to disagree with and openly flaunt many of the rules, often dragging me into the middle.”

“Your mate?” 

“Ulaz.” 

Shiro nodded, unsure of how to react to the information. Being that alien species had a wide range of genders and reproductive systems, it was hard to tell when a pairing was out of the norm or not (it also made figuring out his own sexuality very confusing).

“Ah. So he’s a bad influence on you?” 

“Kolivan would say so. However, this time, I did my job and it’s not my fault that the most psychotic man in the universe was made to be my boss.”

“Thace, are you listening?” the man on the other end snapped. 

“Yes, leader. I should have asked for permission before I acted. However, now that Sendak and the Clone have been neutralized, we have to think of the next steps.”

Shiro stood awkwardly again listening to Thace discuss the plans with his leader, who Thace informed him was named Kolivan. He kind of wanted to leave, but he also wanted to make sure that Thace was being true to his word and was actually trying to help them. Thace put away the communicator and rubbed his brow. 

“So, are you ever going to tell Allura that Keith is the red paladin?” 

The bluntness of the question shocked Shiro. “How did you--”

“Haggar has been trying to locate the actual red paladin for awhile. That’s why you were free to roam about for a bit. She hoped he would be attracted to you. And he was. She purposefully put a connection between your quintessence and the clone’s.”

“I don’t understand.” 

Thace scrubbed his face. “Ulaz would probably be better at explaining this. Essentially, all living things have quintessence, when you’re born, you have a certain type that is attached solely to you.”

“LIke a soul?” 

Thace thought for a moment. “It’s a bit more than that. It’s more like the very essence of your being, the energy that gives you life. Everyone has a unique quintessence, even clones. When you are a paladin of Voltron, your quintessence is the same as the lions’. That’s why not everyone can pilot the lions. I likely wouldn’t get past the particle barrier.

“The paladins are all drawn to each other, including Keith. Haggar purposefully powered the clone’s synthetic arm with your quintessence so not only could he pilot the black lion, but he could also draw out the other paladins. And it worked.” 

Shiro sat down on the chair, the shock of the situation washing over him. “I, I didn’t know he was the red paladin, but last night I had a vision with all the lions, and the red one was next to him, not Allura.” He looked at Thace. “Do you think she’ll be mad?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t known her long enough to give my opinion.”

“Yeah, but I don’t just mean her giving up the red lion.”

Thace nodded and sat down next to him. “You’re worried about Keith’s galra heritage.” 

“Ulaz has mentioned it several times, but I don’t know if she realizes it. She seems to hate the Galra and doesn’t trust you at all.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” 

Shiro decided he had had enough of this conversation and stood up. He should go make sure that Hunk was okay. He paused at the door. “I know you want to win this war, and I do too, but I’m not going to stay here if Keith isn’t welcome.” 

“He does have Galra blood in him, he would be welcome in the Blades,” Thace said. 

“No, I’m not kicking my brother out and abandoning him.”

Thace sighed. “I’m not the one you need to be having this conversation with.” 

Shiro nodded and left the room. He found Hunk and Shay in the Yellow Lion’s hangar. Hunk was excitedly pointing out a bunch of mechanical pieces and showing Shay around. She listened to him with rapt attention. 

“I’ve never actually been off the Balmera before,” she said, her eyes shining as Hunk pointed her towards a large window that showcased a lovely view of the stars. “I was honored when the Doctor asked me to come help him, though my brother was not very happy.” 

Hunk smiled sadly. “Yeah, my sister was worried out of her mind when I got accepted into the Garrison, but it’s been kind of an amazing adventure.” He took her hand and pulled her towards a pile of machines in the corner. “Tell me more about the Balmera. What’s it like?” 

Shiro decided he had snooped enough and went to go see how Pidge and Allura were holding up. He was glad Hunk seemed to be more at ease now. They’d have to have a proper conversation later, but that should wait until everyone was awake and Allura knew about Keith. 

He walked in on Pidge getting poked and prodded by Ulaz. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I haven’t had access to Empire prisoner records for several deca-phoebs now.”   
Pidge slumped forward, biting her lip and looking like she might cry. 

“We have a few contacts in prisoner transport and regulation,” Thace said. “I’ll contact them and see if they know anything. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s okay,” Pidge said. “I didn’t really expect you guys to remember or know about two random humans. Shiro!” She brightened up upon seeing him. “Hunk already told me that he’s pretty sure you’re Nice Shiro and not Evil Shiro.” 

Ulaz smiled at him and continued to remove more bandages from Pidge’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, I would hope so.” Shiro looked over at Lance and Keith. They both looked much better than compared to this morning. 

“Lance should be out by this afternoon,” Ulaz explained. “And with any luck, Keith will be out by this evening. They’re all very resilient children.” 

“I’m not a child,” Pidge said. 

“No, you’re a menace,” Thace grumbled. 

“She hacked into his communicator,” Ulaz explained with a smile. 

“Good job! Hey, have any of you seen Allura, or Coran?” He really needed to sort this whole Keith and the Red Lion thing out sooner rather than later. 

“She and Coran are running a diagnostic of the system to make sure Sendak didn’t leave any viruses,” Thace explained. 

“Thanks Pidge, are you alright?” 

“I’m fine. Hey, Thace, do you guys really have a base that situated between two dying stars?” 

“How are you getting this information?” Thace cried.

“Oh, if you can hack into Blade technology, then you can probably get into the Empire’s system,” Ulaz said. 

“Laz.” Thace warned. 

“I sure can!” 

“Great, let’s figure out a way to crash the GAC. Let’s put this empire into a recession!”

“Yeah!” 

“No! Give me the data pad back!” 

Shiro smiled and continued down to the Crystal room, hoping that Allura would have time to discuss this with him. 

They were finishing up the diagnostic when Shiro came in. “Allura, I really need to talk to you about the Red Lion.”

“Yes, what about it?” Allura asked, not looking up from the data pad. 

Shiro steeled himself. “Keith is the Red Paladin.” 

Allura and Coran stopped their work and stared at him. 

“How do you know?” she asked. 

“Last night, I had a vision, all the lions were with their paladins except for the Red one, she was with Keith. Later when I was talking to Thace, he confirmed that Keith is the Red Paladin. Apparently, my quintessence draws the other paladins to me. That’s why Keith followed the path to my cell. That’s probably why Lance and the others were able to find me at the space mall.”

Allura stared at him, rigid as Shiro continued to ramble. 

“We probably won’t know for sure until he wakes up and he can attempt to pilot the lion.” 

Allura took a deep breath and leaned against the crystal. “I-I believe you. I know I am not the Red Lion’s paladin. And I know the paladins are drawn to the lions, and each other.” 

“The Red Lion was her father’s lion,” Coran explained, turning back to the data pad. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. It must be hard to give it up.” Shiro winced. He didn’t know for certain that Allura was going to give up anything. He shouldn’t be making assumptions. Still, he had to set the record straight. 

“Allura, Keith is half-galra, and while we may not be related, I am his family. We’re each other’s only family. I understand if you don’t want him piloting, or in the castle, but I’m not going to abandon him.” 

Allura looked up, her eyes a bit shiny with tears. “No, Shiro, that’s, I mean, I’m not ecstatic about the fact that a Galra will be piloting--”

“A half-galra, half-human,” Shiro corrected her. “And what does it matter that He’s half Galra?” 

She opened her mouth to let out a string of excuses. 

Shiro was having none of it. “Back on Earth, there was this big war, we called it World War Two, and one of the enemy countries was Japan.” He took a deep breath and continued on. “The American government, the people who were on the morally right side, they rounded up any American of Japanese descent and put them into these camps.”

He stared at her. “My grandparents were put into a camp. They were against the Nazis and were loyal to the Allies, but they were judged because of their descent. Keith may be Galra, but don’t punish him because of who his mother was.” 

Allura closed her mouth and nodded. “I know, I’m sorry, Shiro. I’m being honest when I say I’m not ecstatic, but I’m not going to kick him out or refuse to let him pilot the Red Lion because of who his parents were. I can’t. The Red Lion will accept no other paladin, none of the lions will unless their original paladins are dead.” 

“Or lost,” Coran said, lowering his head. 

Shiro didn’t know what that meant, but he was glad that they had come to an understanding about the Red Lion. He would figure it out later. 

“Are you sure he’d even want to pilot the lion?” Allura asked. 

“Oh, that kid? Yeah. He loves to fly and trust me, once he sees these lion’s, he’ll be itching to try them out.” He could tell that she didn’t want a galra in the helm, but she was trying, and that’s all he could ask for at the moment. 

“Good to know!” Coran brightened. “Now then, should we get ready for our meeting with Kolivan. I’m interested to hear about this Blade society and how they might help us win this thing.” 

“Good idea. The crystals all seem to be in good shape. Oh, where’s Shay?” Allura asked, looking around. 

“She’s with Hunk. They’re getting along pretty well,” Shiro said, following them out of the room. 

“What about Pidge? Is she alright?” Allura asked. 

“Last time I saw her, she was annoying Thace by hacking into all of his tech. Ulaz seemed amused.” 

They chatted some more along the way. The weight that had been on Shiro’s shoulders had started to lift some. He still had to deal with Keith when he woke up, and deal with whatever problems Kolivan brought with him, but things were calming down and looking up. With any luck, he’d be flying the Black Lion again and Zarkon’s empire would be crumbing around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Kolivan shows up and Lance wakes up!


	19. Kolivan Might be the Most Mentally Stable One

Kolivan was by far one of the most intimidating galra Shiro had seen, including Sendak. Despite being about the same height as Ulaz and Thace, he seemed to tower over everyone. He was muscular and held himself like a true soldier. With Sendak, Shiro knew he was crazy and this craziness made him unpredictable. With Kolivan, he had an air of control around him. Shiro had no doubt that he was not intimidated by Allura’s threats of destruction at all, nor was he intimidated by Voltron (though, to be fair, once you found out it was being piloted by a bunch of homesick teenagers, it was hard to be intimidated). 

“I thought I told you to come alone,” Allura said, her voice icy. 

Behind Kolivan stood a masked galra with a tail. The tail twitched in a way that told Shiro he (or she) was annoyed, but the soldier stood ramrod straight, not saying a word. 

Kolivan narrowed his eyes. “We are in Empire controlled space on a planet that is neighboring a large Empire controlled outpost. It would be unwise for me, or any of my people to fly here alone, without someone to man the weapons, should we get attacked.” 

Ulaz shifted his eyes away and stared at the ceiling. 

Allura nodded and motioned him forward. Hunk and Pidge were standing off to the side, with Hunk standing nervously behind Pidge and Pidge staring up in awe at the galra. It was likely that these kids had never actually seen a galra up close before and were busy trying to be brave in the face of these nine-foot cat monsters. Once you got to know Ulaz and Thace, they were not very intimidating, with Ulaz seeming to be a bundle of chaotic energy and Thace an exasperated man trying to keep everyone alive. Kolivan was neither. He exuded power and confidence and Hunk and Pidge were, no doubt, terrified and curious about him. 

Kolivan stopped in front of Shiro and studied him. Should he, like, bow or something? 

“Is this the original, Lieutenant?” 

“I’m right here. You can ask me,” Shiro said. 

Kolivan crossed his hands behind his back and loomed over him. Shiro was proud that he didn’t break eye contact, though he was scared. “No, I cannot. A clone has already managed to infiltrate the Voltron coalition once and it is entirely possible that it has done so again. Therefore, your word means little in regards to proving that you are not a clone nor an agent of the Empire. As such, I defer to my lieutenant, someone whose job it is to learn about the Empire’s tactics and report them to me so that we may sabotage the war effort.” 

Thace cleared his throat. “This is the original, sir.” 

Kolivan turned and continued following Allura. “Good. I will discuss your mission failures later. You as well, Doctor.” 

Shiro felt kind of bad for them. They were just doing their jobs. Had Ulaz not come here, the kids would have definitely died. There was no way they’d be able to get the crystals fast enough. And Thace was in a hard position as a double agent. 

He might say something, but he had to think about this carefully. From the sounds of it, the Blade of Mamora was a very intense organization (did the Galra ever do anything that wasn’t intense?). If he said the wrong things, he might get Ulaz and Thace in more trouble. He would help them, though. They saved Keith’s life. 

They all sat around a conference room type table with the Galra who had come with Kolivan stood behind him. Thace sat next to him with Ulaz sitting next to him. Allura took her place at the other head of the table with Hunk and Pidge nervously sitting next to her, and Coran standing behind her. Shiro paused, looking at the layout and trying to figure out where he should sit. He decided to sit next to Pidge and Hunk, to be a barrier, a buffer so that if things go too tense, they could rely on him. 

They sat in silence, the hum of the ship being the only noise Shiro could hear. 

“What happened?” Kolivan asked. 

Thace stood up. “As I was the only one present with both the ship and the paladins, I request permission to speak. Though, Hunk, Pidge, you should also tell what happened in the period where you and the other two confronted Sendak and YT37298.” 

“That would perhaps be for the best,” Allura said.

Thace recounted what had happened on the ship and Shiro was both horrified, and actually a little proud. Keith didn’t react to the situation perfectly, but he also wasn’t reckless. He let out a breath he didn’t even realize he had been holding. Yes, Keith had been beaten and chained, probably scared out of his mind, but he wasn’t tortured. At least, not physically. Kolivan didn’t comment and didn’t ask questions. He sat, silently, staring intently at Thace who explained his decision making process, including his decision to bring in Ulaz. 

When he finished, Hunk and Pidge started, though it was much less structured that Thace’s version, with each jumping in and adding things the other had forgotten. Kolivan again listening to their account without a word. When they finished, the room was quiet once again. 

“You knew about Voltron, and the clone.” Allura finally said, her voice deadly and shaking. “My paladins were put in danger and you knew about it.” 

“Princess, we are a galra organization, we all look like galra and most of us have served in the Empire at one point or another. Do you really think you would believe it if one of my agents tried to convince you that the black paladin was secretly an Empire spy?” 

Allura was silent. 

“When Doctor Ulaz first uncovered the plot to clone the Black Paladin, I immediately started diverting my spies to focus on that particular effort. Things were made more difficult when Doctor Ulaz defied orders and helped the Black Paladin escape, but perhaps that was for the best as it appears his escape also kept the Red Paladin out of Galra hands.”

Ulaz did not look ashamed at this jab that he had defied orders. He merely crossed his arms and glared at Kolivan. 

“Lieutenant Thace, given his tactical expertise, was then put in charge of infiltrating Sendak’s brigade and gaining trust so he could better discover and thwart the plan. When this plan was enacted, the plan to kill all the paladins and take back the lions, he reacted. And here we are now.” 

Finally, someone who also didn’t argue at every freaking moment. Kolivan was still scary and the way he spoke was that of someone who was in complete control, whether you liked it or not, but still, it was better than Shiro having to be the mediator. 

Allura nodded. “And what is your suggestion at a next move?” 

Kolivan tapped his claw on the table. “My organization has several thousand spies in various positions all over the Empire, both in the military, government, and private sectors. We have been able to slow the Empire’s spread as well as improve the lives of those currently under the rule. With Voltron’s more aggressive and… showy rebellion, the people are starting to gain hope and rebel as well.”

“Are you suggesting an alliance?” Allura asked. 

“Yes. With our stealth tactics and your open defiance, we might actually have a chance to defeat Zarkon and Haggar.”

“Yeah, but why have you guys never managed to before?” Hunk asked. 

Shiro and Thace both winced. 

Kolivan didn’t seem upset, however. He regarded Hunk with curiosity. “The main failing of the Blades is perhaps our overly conservative way of doing things. It takes time to work through the ranks of the Empire and get to a position where we can enact real change. Also, the majority of the universe has been under the rule of the Galra Empire for thousands of years. Suddenly destroying the government would lead to a vacuum in power--”

“That would lead to potentially worse groups taking over.” Hunk interrupted. “You need a leader, don’t you.”

Kolivan seemed surprised. “That’s right. I do not want to rule over the universe, and after ten thousand years of oppression from the galra, I suspect that most beings wouldn’t find a galra controlled government… appealing.” He turned to Allura. “You, however, they might support. Even if you merely help set up a universal government, the people would be more likely to trust you.” 

Allura looked shocked. Shiro was shocked. From Thace’s description it sounded like Kolivan was a die hard fanatic who refused to admit that he was wrong. But the way he was talking about not only the present, but the future as well, he had a plan. 

He decided to speak up. “That’s all well and good, but I think we need some sort of liasons from the Blade to be with us.” 

“I,” Allura took a deep breath, “I agree. If you have access to government affairs and military plans, it would help us plan better. Right now we are a reactionary force. We are simply reacting to the monsters Haggar has been throwing at us. With your information as well as having the actual Black and Red Paladins with us, we’d be able to do much more.”

Coran put a hand on her shoulder and smiled down at her. 

Shiro knew who he wanted to act as liaisons, he just hoped Allura and Kolivan would agree. “I would like Thace and Ulaz to stay here.” 

Everyone looked at him, surprised. 

“Explain?” Kolivan said. 

He cleared his throat. “It has come to my attention over the past few quintants that while Coran does know the basics of medicine, he is not a doctor. Ulaz is, and not only that, he knows how the human body works. We are in a war. People are going to get hurt, have already gotten hurt. We need someone who can keep the Paladins alive. We can’t wait another ten thousand years for one to show up.” 

“And Thace?” 

Truthfully, Shiro just felt bad for Thace and Ulaz. They were married, or whatever the Galra equivalent was, and probably had not spent a lot of time together due to their jobs, both inside and outside the empire. However, something told him that such an argument would not go over well with Kolivan. 

“You worked with a lot of upper level Garla, correct?” 

Thace nodded. 

“He knows more than anyone else on this ship how the empire operates and what kinds of tactics they use. Not only that, but he can’t go back to being an undercover agent in the Galra Empire. He failed his mission. By the rules, victory or death, and he’s not dead.” 

“It does make more sense than pulling another spy out of the military,” Allura said. 

“And, we already know him,” Pidge added. “So we’d have an easier time trusting him.”

“You’ve known me for less than a quintant, menace,” Thace grumbled. 

Kolivan nodded. “That is a good argument. I will have to consider it. Is there anything else we need to discuss?” 

Allura shook her head. “Not that I know of, though before you go, I do want some way to contact you.”

“Of course.” 

Shiro let out a sigh of relief. That had gone way better than expected. There wasn’t any shouting, or arguments, or fights. Just a couple of leaders talking like adults and learning from each other. He had hope. Maybe with the Blades and Voltron as a team they’d finally be able to end this war. 

oOoOoOo

Lance woke up not long after that. Kolivan and Antok, his companion, were going to stay the night and leave the next morning. Thace and Coran had gone down to ensure Sendak and the clone were still in stasis. Ulaz went to check on Lance. 

When he got out of the pod, Allura, Hunk, and Pidge all crowded around him and gave him a big group hug, each sniffling and crying with relief. He was alright, not even a scratch was left. 

“So, are we just like, collecting galra now? Seriously, there’s like four on this ship.” Lance asked as Ulaz poked and prodded at him. 

“Five if you count Sendak.” Pidge added. 

“We need a doctor on this ship,” Shiro explained. “Ulaz is a doctor, so he should stay on this ship.” 

“Yeah. Also, I miss openly destroying government property. Best part of being a spy.” Ulaz looked wistful. 

“How were you not executed for treason, again?” Shiro asked. 

“People like me.” 

“So, what are you going to do, Shiro?” Lance asked. 

Everyone’s smiles dropped and they looked at him. 

Shiro wanted to assure them that he was staying, to give them some piece of mind, but he couldn’t; not until he talked to Keith. He wasn’t going to abandon him.   
“I’m staying for now,” he said, hoping it would satisfy them. 

No one seemed satisfied, but they didn’t push. 

Hunk, Allura and Pidge continued to chat with Lance and Shiro felt like he was intruding, so he slipped out. He wandered the halls for awhile, marveling at the structure of the castle. Eating food goo that seemed to never end and taking a look at what would likely be his room. Regardless, he felt restless. The Castle was too different, too quiet, too big. And until Keith came out of the pod, he couldn’t relax completely. 

He was walking along one darkened hallway, killing time until Keith woke up, when he spotted Ulaz and Thace a little further down. Ulaz had his arms around Thace’s neck, his hands in his hair, and Thace was hugging him tightly. Oh, wait, no, they weren’t hugging, they were kissing, rather deeply. 

Shiro blushed and promptly turned and walked through a random door, not wanting to intrude on such an intimate moment. 

“Shiro? What are you doing here?” Lance asked. 

Shiro looked around the room he had stepped in by accident, it was another bedroom that was clearly lived in.

“Oh, um, this is awkward.” He laughed because what else could you do when you walking into a teenager’s bedroom unannounced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I just got turned around.” 

Lance shrugged. “It happens when you first get here.” 

Shiro was about to leave when he noticed that Lance looked depressed. He seemed so happy before in the med bay, cracking jokes and flirting with Allura. This was a bit scary to see. He couldn’t just leave the kid like this. 

“Hey, are you okay?” 

“Hm, yeah, I’m fine.” 

Liar. Shiro sat down on his bed. “Lance, it’s okay if you’re not feeling one hundred percent right now. What you went through was… awful. It was awful.” 

Lance shrugged and stared at the wall. Shiro hated when Keith did this. He would try and convince Shiro that everything was fine and Shiro would have pry it out of him like a dentist pulling teeth. He wouldn’t leave Lance, not like this. 

“Look, I know that we don’t really know each other--”

“That’s the problem!” Lance stood up, and turned his back to him. “For you, nothing has changed. If anything, life’s gotten better. I’m not blaming you, it’s not your fault, but this is more than just an attack on the Castle.” 

Ah, yeah, good point. “I know.”

He turned to him. “Do you? You weren’t betrayed by anyone. I, I trusted him, I looked up to him. When we were fighting him down in the crystal room, it’s like he didn’t even care about us.” 

Shiro wanted to say ‘I know’ again, but figured he should just let Lance get it all out. 

“How could you spend your life on Earth and then fight alongside us and make us believe that you care about us and then just throw it all away?” 

Shiro wondered if Lance was addressing the clone, or him. Then it hit him. He shared a face with this monster, he shared a name with him. These kids were attacked and hurt and even though it wasn’t Shiro’s fault, they still had to deal with this. Were they all holding these emotions inside? Were they all breaking down individually in their rooms after being confronted with the fact that they would have to look at their attacker every day? 

Lance scrubbed the tears from his face. “He didn’t even hesitate. Why? Did we not mean anything to him?”

Shiro put his hand on his shoulder, figured, screw it, and pulled him into a hug. He may have the clone’s face, but he was not the clone. He would help these kids get through this. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. I wish I could help you more but you’re right. I never suffered a betrayal like this.” 

Lance didn’t push him away, instead he just clung to him, like Shiro was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely. 

“He didn’t even care about us,” Lance said. 

He wanted to argue that it wasn’t true, that some part of him must have cared. But Keith’s jaw was crushed by him. Lance’s ribs were crushed by him. Hunk’s back was torn to shreds by him. Pidge’s arms were broken by him. Allura and Coran would have been shot on sight by him if it hadn’t been for Thace helping Keith escape. 

When Shiro’s parents were at their worst, the words people would say to him would haunt him. Whenever his parents hit him, or berated him, or called him useless and worthless, the people who insisted that they loved him and wanted the best for him, their words would mock him. Shiro may not have been betrayed by a friend, but he did know what it was like to be betrayed by someone who was supposed to protect you. 

He pushed Lance away so he could look at him in the eyes. “Kid, sometimes the people who are supposed to help us and keep us safe, are the very ones who hurt us the most. There’s nothing you can do about it. It is not your fault. There is nothing you or Pidge or Hunk or anyone could have done that would have changed this outcome.”

“But--”

Shiro shook his head. “No. You’re right, he betrayed you and hurt you. And you are going to get angry and depressed and ask yourself over and over again what you could have done differently. And that’s okay, as long as you keep moving forward and appreciate the people you have. Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Coran are all still there for you.” 

Lance sniffled some more, but smiled. 

“Besides,” Shiro added. “That dude had a weird haircut. And that shirt, seriously, short-sleeved? It’s space, nobody cares about your biceps.”

Lance laughed. “Thanks, Shiro. Sorry for yelling at you.” 

“Eh, I raised a volatile twelve-year-old. Trust me, I’m used to it.” He dropped his arms. “You better?” 

He nodded. “Yeah.” 

Slowly the team was coming together. It would take them all a long time to recover from this, but they would. They had each other’s backs and Shiro was determined to keep them all moving forward, healing mentally as well as physically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter guys! Tears! It's almost over! More Tears!


	20. The Red and Black Paladins

Shiro paced back and forth across the med bay to the point where he was starting to get blisters on his feet. It was getting later and later in the evening and Keith still hadn’t woken up. 

“Shiro,” Ulaz put a hand on his shoulder, “you need to relax. He’s fine.” 

“Then why isn’t he out yet?” He felt restless, useless as he waited and waited and waited. He had done enough waiting, but he also couldn’t do anything else. It wasn’t like there were sentries to fight, and he was no doctor. He’d probably end up hurting Keith more than he would help him. 

“He will be out soon. All of his life signs are good and the pod’s just working through some superficial injuries.” Ulaz tapped something on the data pad. “He actually responded to the pod better than I had hoped. I was worried, given his mixed heritage, that the pod wouldn’t be able to heal him, but it seems that he exhibits more human than galra characteristics.” 

Shiro sat down on a chair, jiggled his knee up and down and then stood back up. “What if something went wrong? Something you don’t know about?” 

Ulaz guided him back to the chair and sat him down. “I know you’re worried, but trust me. All of the other paladins have awaken perfectly fine, not a scratch on them.” 

Shiro stood back up and continued to pace. “I can’t sit still. I can’t wait any more. After everything he’s been through, what if something bad happened, something the pod can’t fix?” 

“Then we will support him and help him through it. You are no longer alone, Shiro. You have people who can and will help.” 

He leaned against the wall. He sat down next to the wall. He stood back up and tapped his foot on the ground. 

Ulaz typed something else into the data pad. 

Shiro’s mind continued to race and to blame. Despite what he had told Lance and Allura, he felt like there was something more he could have done; something more he should have done to prevent all of this from happening. 

“Hey, Shiro?” Pidge’s voice sounded from the door. 

He turned to see Pidge, Allura, Lance, Hunk, Coran, and Thace all by the door, peeking into the med bay. 

“Shouldn’t you guys be in bed? It’s, well, honestly I never really understood the whole time thing, but it’s late.” He hoped nothing was the matter with them.

They all still seemed to be in one piece and no one looked like they had been crying recently. 

“No, we came to see how you were doing,” Allura said. “You’ve been so great helping us out. I’m afraid we may have forgotten about you.” 

He shook his head. “No, you guys are fine. I’m just waiting for Keith to get out.” 

Lance walked over to the pod and looked in on him. “Yeah, I’m a little nervous, we didn’t really get off to the best start.”

“What happened?” 

“Um, well, we snuck up on him and he thought we were on the same side as Evil Shiro, which we technically were until we found out he was Evil Shiro, so we got into a fight and then we realized that he was--”

“He made fun of my name!” Lance cut Hunk’s rambling off. 

“You made fun of his hair,” Hunk pointed out. 

“After he made fun of my name.” 

Shiro scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, the hair thing isn’t really his fault.” He laughed. “I did my best, but all we had were knives and have you ever tried to cut hair with a knife?” 

“A mullet is still a mullet,” Lance mumbled. 

Pidge elbowed Hunk in stomach. 

“Ow, what was that for?” 

“Give him the thing,” she hissed. 

“The thing? Oh, yeah!” Hunk handed Shiro a plate of what looked to be chocolate chip cookies. “I didn’t know what kind of deserts you likes, so I made these instead. You can have some too, Ulaz.” 

Shiro smiled and bit into one. It was possibly the best chocolate chip cookie he had ever had, despite the fact that it probably wasn’t made with any of the ingredients needed to make chocolate chip cookies. 

“Oh, this is nice!” Ulaz’s face lit up. 

“Thanks guys,” Shiro said, taking another cookie and munching on it. It felt weird that there was food everywhere on this ship, that no one seemed concerned about running out of supplies. He wondered how Keith would react, being able to eat whenever he wanted and not having to worry about when their next meal was coming. 

“We also wanted to thank you, for everything you’ve done,” Coran said. 

“You were quite the fighter,” Thace added. “Your skill and ability to react to the situation quickly and efficiently is what probably saved the lives of everyone here. Though I’m still not sure what a ‘yeet’ is, and the kits have not been forthcoming with information.” 

Pidge and Lance snickered. Shiro kind of felt bad for Thace, but he also liked seeing people monstrously misuse slang because they didn’t understand it. He also felt happy that someone was saying that his actions saved lives. He knew, logically, that he did the best he could and this outcome was, perhaps, the best he could hope for. Still, it felt nice for someone else to acknowledge it. 

“In the two days that we’ve known you, you’re already way better than Evil Shiro,” Lance said. 

“Yeah, you’ve helped calm us all down, you saved our lives, you kept the lions out of Galra control.” Pidge ticked off on her fingers. 

“We also wanted you to know that if you need help with anything, you can come talk to us,” Allura said. “You’ve done more than enough for us, it’s the least we can do.” 

It was a nice offer, an appealing offer, but Shiro did not want to burden anyone with his messed up mind. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder and Ulaz leaned in close to whisper, “remember, Shiro, you’re not the only adult any more. You can rely on Thace, Coran, and myself if you need to.” 

He nodded. “Thanks, everyone. This really means a lot to me. I’ve been alone for a very long time, or only had Keith around. It’ll take some getting used to.” 

“Just tell me what foods you like, and I’ll make them for you!” Hunk said. “Mom always said the best way to make someone feel better was a nice home cooked meal.” 

“Yeah, and Hunk’s food is the best,” Lance added. 

Shiro noticed Coran pouting a bit, feeling slightly bad for the man. Then again, if Hunk continued to make things as good as the Mac N’ Cheese and chocolate chip cookies, Shiro never wanted to taste Coran’s food. 

Ulaz’s data pad made a sound. “Alright, all of you except for Shiro out.” He shooed them all away. 

“Why?” PIdge asked. 

“Keith is waking up.” 

“So? I want to be here when Mullet wakes up. I need to brag about how I totally saved his life with my awesome shooting skills.” 

“Later, Lance,” Allura said, taking his elbow and pulling him out of the room. 

“Why are you making it a competition between you and him?” Pidge asked.

“I never had a rival, so I want a rival.” 

“Isn’t Zarkon a rival?” Hunk pointed out. 

“No, he’s an enemy. Rivals are more fun.” 

The door shut, leaving Shiro and Ulaz alone once more. 

“I want to do an additional check-up on him, just to make sure everything healed correctly and there’s no pain, but I can give you two a few doboshes for your, and his piece of mind.”

“Oh, thank you. I wasn’t even thinking about that.” Shiro walked over to Keith’s pod and stared at it. He was probably going to break down, and while he didn’t think anyone would take any offense to that, he also didn’t want to embarrass Keith or completely lose himself in front of near strangers. 

The pod hissed open, and Keith stumbled out. 

oOoOoOo

The last thing Keith remembered before passing out was incredible pain in his face, torso, and whole body really. He remembered using all of the strength he had left in his body, ignoring all the pain for just a moment longer, to throw the knife, his mother’s knife, as best as he could at Sendak so he could save Pidge. 

When he woke up, he was cold, but he wasn’t in pain. 

A pair of familiar hands caught him and a familiar voice said in his ear, “Easy there.” 

He blinked a few times, his vision slowly coming into focus. He was in a dark and unfamiliar room. It looked almost like a hospital or medical clinic. “Shiro?” His speech was slurred and he was having a hard time keeping his balance. 

Everything hit him at once. The clone, Sendak, the fight for the crystals. He knew before what had happened, but suddenly he was hit with the full weight. 

He turned to Shiro, panic clawing at him. Was this his Shiro? The one who saved him and who he thought of as a brother? Or was it a copy, a clone that had been warped and twisted by Haggar to hurt him, physically and emotionally? What if he had failed? He looked around to see if any of the paladins were in the room with him but they were gone. Did he fail? Did he not actually hit Sendak and they were all dead? 

Before his mind could come up with a plan to get out of here, to figure out what had happened, Shiro crushed him to his chest, arms tight around his back. 

\Keith was distantly aware that they were sinking to their knees and he felt his neck growing wet with Shiro’s tears.

“You didn’t follow the rules,” Shiro choked. 

“What?” 

He squeezed him tighter. “The rules. My number one rule is to always look out for yourself first, even if it means leaving me and you didn’t do it.”

Keith felt his own tears start to roll down his cheeks as he hugged Shiro back. This was him, this was really him. The other Shiro didn’t know about the stupid rules. And the other Shiro didn’t sound like the kind of guy who would even suggest Keith leaving him behind. 

“I can’t, Keith, I can’t go through that again. You could have died and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.” 

Normally, Keith hated crying. He hated showing weakness or admitting that he was invincible. But he missed Shiro so much and he was so worried that he was never going to see him again. 

“You’re all I have left. I can’t lose you.” He wondered if Shiro had even heard him, what with his face buried into Shiro’s shoulder and sobbing like a child. “You’re the only one who’s never abandoned me. I love you. I couldn’t--I couldn’t let them take you from me.” 

Shiro’s hand had found its way into his hair and was stroking it, detangling it with his fingers. Keith squeezed him harder, because there was a chance that this wasn’t real, that this was all in his mind and he desperately wanted to cling to him to assure himself that this was real. That they were and they were safe. 

“Oh, kiddo,” Shiro continued to pet him and hug him tightly, as if he were afraid of the same thing, “maybe I need to revise the rules, then. If you insist on coming after me.”

Keith snorted and loosened his grip. “As long as you promise not to get kidnapped again.” 

“Like you’re one to talk. The number of bad situations I’ve had to get you out of way outnumbers the bad situations you’ve had to get me out of.” 

They pulled back from one another, Shiro’s hands still on Keith’s shoulders as he helped him stand up. 

“Are you two okay?” 

He turned to see a familiar looking galra standing in the doorway. “Ulaz? You’re alive?” 

Ulaz chuckled and stepped forward to help him onto an examination table. “Yes, I am.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Thace called me to help heal you all.” 

Keith felt a wave of relief wash over him. “So the others are okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “They all got out of the pods earlier today. Not a scratch on them.” 

“Good, I was worried when I woke up and no one else was here.” 

Ulaz started poking and prodding him, asking him if he felt any pain and to cough and take deep breaths. 

“Hm, a little malnourished but otherwise in good health. Teeth look nice, ears look nice. And you’re not missing any limbs, which is always nice.” Ulaz smiled at him. “Alright, Keith, you’re free to go. Though, if you do start feeling pain let me know immediately.” 

He hopped off the table. “Fine.” 

He and Shiro wandered through the halls. He was starting to get nervous because he could tell Shiro was gearing up to tell him something and he didn’t like it when Shiro had to prepare himself. 

“What is it?” He decided to get the conversation over with. After what they had just gone through and Shiro holding onto him like he would disappear at any minute, he didn’t think he was going to get left behind. He was still nervous. 

Shiro led him into a large hangar with an even larger ship in it. It looked like the lions Lance and Hunk had flown, but bigger, and black instead of blue and yellow. 

“I don’t know how much you know about the situation, but I was cloned because I am the Black Paladin of Voltron,” he started. 

“Um, I know about Voltron. My mom used to tell me stories.” 

Shiro’s jaw tightened, as it often did when Keith mentioned his mother. He ran a hand through his hair. “Voltron needs a Black Paladin and according to Allura, they can’t just replace them.” 

Keith didn’t voice his questions. He didn’t want Shiro to confirm what he was suggesting. 

“Voltron also needs a Red Paladin--”

Wait, Red Paladin. Keith remembered Thace saying something about that before he knocked him out. 

Shiro turned to him. “It appears that I’m the Black Paladin, and you’re the Red Paladin.” 

He blinked. “Wait, you’re saying that I get my own giant lion ship?” 

“Um, that’s not really what I want you to focus on here.” He put a hand on his shoulder and guided him towards a bench. “Look, Keith, we are two of the paladins. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to fight in this war. I will never make you fight if you don’t want to.” 

“Are you saying that we don’t have to stay?” Keith didn’t want things to change between him and Shiro. The life they lived was a hard one, but it was theirs and Keith wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

“Yeah. I know this is a lot to dump on your shoulders, especially after what happened, but I don’t want to put it off for too long.”

“What if I want to leave and you want to stay?” He honestly didn’t know what he wanted. The idea that he was someone important, that he might have the chance to help end this war and the suffering of trillions, it was too much to comprehend. He wasn’t anything special or important. He wasn’t someone who had a great destiny planned from the beginning. He was Keith. He lived with his brother in a ship that was about forty deca-phoebs too old and fell apart often. They scavenged for food and money when they could and drifted through the stars. He wasn’t someone special enough for a lion. Shiro, on the other hand… 

“Then I’ll go with you.” 

“And give up this opportunity? Are you crazy?” 

He shook his head. “I never asked to be the Black Paladin. I did, however, willingly take up the mantel as your family and that’s not something I am going to abandon.” 

“I don’t know. Do you think we’d be any good at this whole ‘save the universe thing’?”

“I dunno. We can’t be any worse than the time I tried to hunt those willas.” 

He laughed. Shiro had ended up covered in purple willa snot and didn’t manage to catch a single one. “The kids got more than you.” 

“That’s my point. You’re a good pilot and a good fighter. You proved that when you managed to go against a top ranking general and come out of it alive. If you want to do this, then let’s do it. We can always leave if it doesn’t work out.” 

Keith bumped Shiro’s shoulder. “Yeah, someone has to keep an eye on you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You were kidnapped by Lance of all people. Lance! Could you really not get away?” 

“You’re a brat. Those kids were strong.” 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure all two feet of Pidge was really intimidating.” They were both laughing by now, and Keith was feeling better about this whole idea.

He remembered the occasional voices and feelings that drifted through his head. He remembered dreaming of a red lion pacing and calling for him, but he could never reach her. Maybe it was time to start striving for more, to be more than just a drifter. Maybe he could help win this war and restore peace to the universe. 

oOoOoOo

Hunk didn’t cook dinner for them the next morning. Everyone instead had food goo and some of the meal replacement bars Keith and the clone had picked up at the space mall. Ulaz, Thace, Shiro, and Keith were now permanent additions to the Voltron Family, and Shiro had never felt happier. 

When he was fourteen, he dreamed of a home in which he was loved and wanted. A home where his accomplishments were not looked down upon. A home where he was surrounded by people who loved him. 

When he was nineteen, he dreamed of freedom. Freedom from the prison. Freedom from the pain and the suffering. Freedom from his never ending hell. 

When he was twenty-five, he finally found what he had been looking for. Sure, Keith was the only one he loved right now, but these kids had grown on him so quickly. Sure, it wasn’t your typical 1950’s sitcom family, but a pair of nine-foot tall gay purple space cats, a 10,000 year old alien with a ginger mustache and a 10,000 year old warrior space princess, along with five sentient robotic lions and four very rowdy teenagers, was more than perfect for Shiro. 

They still had a long and hard road ahead of them. But as Black purred in the back of his mind while Keith and Lance argued with each other while Hunk hovered nervously in the background and Pidge did more with her computer than the food goo, he couldn’t help but feel as though things were finally coming together. 

oOoOoOo

“General Sendak, Commander Thace, and YT37298 have failed their mission and are presumed dead,” Haggar said, her head bowed low as she addressed Zarkon. 

He said nothing, anger radiating off of him so intensely, it felt as though it could burn her should she try to touch him. 

“I am disappointed,” he said, finally. “You assured me that YT37298 would successfully draw the Red Paladin to him and then we could slaughter them all in at once. Instead, all of the Paladins are now together. Voltron will be stronger as a result.”

“Not all is lost,” Haggar said. She hadn’t failed yet, this was merely a setback. And with almost the entire universe under their grasp, one setback was not detrimental. “Before YT37298 came into contact with the Red Paladin, he was able to rendezvous with one of my druids and, if my last contact with him is correct, has the package on the Castle. They will all be dead soon enough.” 

Zarkon stood up and walked to the observation window, looking out at the stars and galaxies that were under his control. “And what if it doesn’t? This is not one small setback, The Red and Black Paladins being present means that Voltron will be stronger now. The stronger they are, the more likely they are to defeat us.” 

She had to come up with a way to calm him, to reassure him that they were still in control even if their spy was no longer with Voltron. “They are children. And they are a small group. It won’t take much to defeat them. We underestimated them before; we won’t do so again. And you still have your connection with the Black Lion. It will still follow you.” 

A messenger came through the door. “My liege,” he said, bowing in front of Zarkon, “The group has overturned another one of our mining operations.”

Zarkon roared and smacked the messenger, sending him across the room. “How? He does not have the army to do so!” 

Haggar got an idea. “My Lord,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders to calm him, “this could work in our favor.” 

“How? If we are forced to fight two enemies at once, we will lose on both fronts.” 

She smiled. “Not necessarily. If Lotor wants to overthrow you to cement his own rule, we can simply use him as a distraction. The paladins are weak. They will help those whom they perceive to be suffering.”

“And Lotor will attack places he thinks are strategically important to me. When he’s taken over, he will continue to use the slaves in such a manner that Voltron will be forced to intervene.” Zarkon nodded. “I see what you’re getting at.” 

“We can afford to lose a few mining operations and planets. Besides, he and his generals are not dismantling what we have set up, so we won’t lose anything, but a few slaves in the process. One of them will, eventually, destroy the other. And while you have conquered most of the universe, there are a few places we have yet to reach. We can simply turn our attention there” 

Zarkon sat down in his chair. “How long before your little magic trick starts to affect the paladins?” 

“It should already be affecting them, but in a few movements time we will be able to know if it is successful or not.” 

“Fine. Bring me the top strategists we have. We need to decide which areas we can give to Lotor and which ones we need to keep under our control.” 

The messenger stood up, nodded, and dashed away. Haggar hoped the Paladins of Voltron would be the ones who were destroyed. She wouldn’t betray Zarkon, but she needed time to figure out how to appease Lotor before he died as well. Perhaps it was for the best that the clone failed. She couldn’t focus on that now, though. She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is not over! I mean, this one story is over but I am not finished with this universe. Watch out for one-shots in this universe over the next few weeks while I finish up the next longer fic. I've got plans and hopefully it will all work out. This should be showing up as a series so you can always subscribe to the series if you want to make sure you catch everything. Happy Halloween if I don't post before then!


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